OFCCP Adopts New Audit Procedures and Strategy

The Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance ("OFCCP") is charged with enforcing the affirmative action and equal employment opportunity obligations applicable to federal contractors. OFCCP intends to establish a more "robust" enforcement scheme, issuing a Directive this month that discontinues its active case management ("ACM") procedures previously used for contractor compliance evaluations. OFCCP Director Patricia Shiu signed the Directive, which was posted on the agency's website on December 8, 2010.

Established in 2003, the ACM procedures were originally designed to streamline the OFCCP audit process by employing what became known as an "abbreviated desk audit" of federal contractor written affirmative action plans and personnel data. The abbreviated desk audit looked for "indicators of systemic discrimination;" i.e., discrimination involving 10 or more individuals. Without evidence of such discrimination, the agency normally closed its