March 19, 2008

A summary of daily news relevant to the federal workforce produced by the Partnership for Public Service.

1. FDA to Establish New Positions in China
2. Brawl Blamed on Staffing Shortage
3. Customer Satisfaction with Government Web Sites Declines
4. Good-Government Groups Announce FedPitch Competition

FDA to Establish New Positions in China

Federal Daily

In the wake of a series of imported drug and food safety scares, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has received State Department approval to establish eight permanent FDA positions at U.S. diplomatic posts in the People's Republic of China. The new postings will require authorization from the Chinese government, FDA said in a statement last week. If the move is approved by the Chinese, FDA said it will place the staff in China over the next 18 months and hire five local Chinese nationals to work with them at three permanent overseas offices, The offices are expected to be within the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, and in U.S. Consulates General in Shanghai and Guangzhou, FDA said in a statement. The new offices "are a significant step toward ensuring access to safe food, drugs and medical devices in the global market," said Murray M. Lumpkin, FDA deputy commissioner for International and Special Programs.

Brawl Blamed on Staffing Shortage

The Houston Chronicle
By Cindy George

Insufficient staffing and mismanagement contributed to last week's brawl that injured 12 people at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Houston, members of the correctional officers union said Sunday.

The guards leveled the accusations after accompanying U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee on an hourlong tour of the facility, which houses mostly pretrial detainees as well as sentenced inmates awaiting transfer.

A fistfight between two prisoners on Tuesday night erupted into a melee in a common area of the sixth floor, a section for those who have been sentenced and are awaiting transfer to prison. At least 25 inmates joined the fight, which prison officials said was not a riot.

One inmate was hospitalized. Eight other detainees and three staff members sustained minor injuries.

Correctional officer Clifton Buchanan, president of Local 1030 branch of the American Federation of Government Employees union, said the detention center needs more guards. Last month, he visited Washington, D.C., to share his concerns with Jackson Lee and other members of Congress.

"They're not funding us appropriately," he said Sunday outside the detention center. "There's a fear of retaliation or reprisal, and that's why we're reluctant to say anything."

The incident last week illustrates why employees have filed multiple grievances, allegations of unfair labor practices and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints, he added. Buchanan said administrators followed only certain protocols last Tuesday, which resulted in the "misuse of staff, mismanagement of resources and lack of leadership."

To read the entire article, click here.

 

Customer Satisfaction with Government Web Sites Declines

Federal Times
By Courtney Mabeus

The government is not keeping up with the private sector in providing information and services online, and citizens, as a result, are growing less satisfied with government Web sites, a new report suggests.

Customer satisfaction with government sites declined for a third consecutive quarter and has fallen to its lowest overall rating since 2005, according to the University of Michigan's E-government Satisfaction Index for the quarter ending this month, according to a new report issued Tuesday.

Government Web sites and online services scored 72.4 points — a half-point lower than last quarter and a full point lower than at this point last year — in customer satisfaction out of the possible 100 points. The government's all-time high score was 74 in June 2006. The new score is the lowest the government has ranked since June 2005, when customers gave it a 71.9.

The index measures sites' functionality, navigation, search abilities and appearance, based on data gathered from voluntary online surveys of randomly selected visitors to government sites.

The falling score is "a wake-up call. … It's slipping and we need to do something about it," said report author Larry Freed, chief executive of ForeSee Results.

ForeSee Results, which measures online customer satisfaction, produced the report in partnership with the university, the American Society for Quality and CFI Group, an international consulting firm.

Freed blamed the downturn on a combination of factors. For one, private-sector advances have outpaced agency Web sites, many of which are focused on conveying the agency's mission and not focused on users' needs to find what they want quickly.

"The standard that consumers hold these Web sites up to continues to increase," Freed said.

Also, he said there appears to be a lack of priority on e-government initiatives as the end of the Bush administration draws near because the pace of improvement to sites has slowed.

But while the overall scores paint a somewhat grim picture of e-government, customer satisfaction with government e-commerce and transactions jumped by 1.5 percentage points during the last quarter to reach a score of 75.7. Freed said that score might have been buoyed by increased attention on some e-government services, like the IRS Free File program for taxpayers.

The Bush administration has been a big proponent of e-government services for consumers. The Office of Management and Budget last month said that e-government initiatives saved taxpayers an estimated $508 million in fiscal 2007 by making more information and services available and easier to find on the Web, as well as by shutting down duplicative systems across agencies.

This year, 17 of the 105 government sites measured, or 16 percent, met criteria to be considered "top performers" by scoring 80 or better. Two Social Security Administration sites got the top score of 87. They are SSA’s benefits sign-up site and another offering help with Medicare prescription drug plan costs.

Good-Government Groups Announce FedPitch Competition

Call on Citizens to “Pitch” Ideas to Better Manage the Federal Workforce.  The first FedPitch competition will  take place on May 7 at the Public Service Recognition Week National Mall event in Washington, D.C.   Please visit http://www.fedpitch.org/ for more information.  FedPitch is being initiated by 13L, a group of mid-career federal employees, and is co-sponsored by the Council for Excellence in Government, the Partnership for Public Service, Young Government Leaders, and American University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation.