March 12, 1997
This interim rule amends the OGE executive branchwide regulation on ``Executive Agency Ethics Training Programs'' to enable agencies to better focus their training resources on training employees in sensitive positions while ensuring that all executive branch employees receive sufficient training to enable them to understand the ethical responsibilities concomitant with their Government positions. While the current OGE regulation generally requires agencies to provide annual ``verbal'' ethics briefings to covered employees, the interim rule, once effective, will permit agencies to fulfill this requirement for most covered employees by means of a written briefing, provided generally that the employees receive verbal briefings at least once every three calendar years. Annual ethics briefings for employees who file public financial disclosure forms, however, will generally still have to be verbal and, starting next year (1998), will additionally be subject to a further requirement that a qualified individual be present during and after the briefings. This will focus agency ethics training resources upon employees in sensitive positions, while simultaneously freeing significant resources for use in other parts of the agency's ethics training program. Because this rule is being published as an interim rule, agencies will be able to take advantage of this flexibility in conducting their annual ethics briefings for part of the current 1997 training year as well as in future years. As noted, the provision requiring qualified individual personal presence for public filer briefings will not take effect until 1998.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1997-03-12/pdf/97-6160.pdf