GAO: OSHA's VPP Needs Better Oversight

A June 18 report by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) found OSHA’s internal controls for its Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) “are not sufficient to ensure that only qualified worksites participate in the VPP.”

The report found OSHA lacks a policy requiring documentation in VPP files regarding follow-up actions in response to fatalities and serious injuries at VPP sites. This lack of documentation hinders the national office’s ability to ensure regions are reviewing sites’ safety and health systems in order to determine whether sites should remain in VPP.

GAO reviewed OSHA's VPP files for the 30 sites that had fatalities from January 2003 to August 2008 and found that the files contained no documentation of actions taken by the regions' VPP staff. GAO interviewed regional officials and reviewed the inspection files for these sites and found that some sites had safety and health violations related to the fatalities, including one site with seven serious violations. As a result, some sites that no longer met the criteria of an exemplary worksite remained in the VPP. For example, one worksite was allowed to continue to participate in the voluntary program even though it had three separate fatalities over a five-year period.

OSHA has also not developed measures to assess the performance of the VPP, according to the GAO report. OSHA officials argued that low injury and illness rates are effective measures of performance, but GAO found discrepancies between the rates reported by worksites annually to OSHA and the rates OSHA noted during its on-site reviews.

GAO made three recommendations to OSHA:

1. Develop a documentation policy for information on actions taken by OSHA’s regions in response to fatalities and serious injuries at VPP sites;
2. Establish internal controls that ensure consistent compliance by its regions with VPP policies;
3. Develop performance measures for the VPP.

In a written response to the report, Acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Jordan Barab said the agency shares the concerns addressed by the first two recommendations and is committed to improving documentation and internal controls on VPP. With respect to the third recommendation, Mr. Barab said OSHA will use injury and illness rates and continue to identify and refine other appropriate measures of VPP effectiveness.

The report, OSHA's Voluntary Protection Programs: Improved Oversight and Controls Would Better Ensure Program Quality, can be found at: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09395.pdf