59 FR 12145: Executive Agency Ethics Training Programs

This interim rule amends the OGE executive branch-wide regulation on "Executive Agency Ethics Training Programs.'' In response to agency concerns, the interim regulation grants executive branch agencies greater flexibility in administering their ethics training programs, enabling them to more efficiently use available resources to provide their employees with effective ethics training. Under the interim regulation, executive agencies will be able to provide their employees with summaries of the branch-wide regulations governing employee conduct in place of the actual text of those provisions as part of the employees' initial ethics orientation. Agencies are also able to make use of communications and electronic technologies in providing annual ethics training to covered employees. Written materials may be used to meet the annual training requirement for certain categories of employees; the requirement that employees in these categories receive a minimum of one hour of official duty time for annual ethics training is removed. The interim regulation clarifies that employees who fulfill the confidential financial disclosure requirements through an alternate procedure or an OGE-approved substitute affirmative disclosure system are required to receive annual ethics training. Minor changes have also been made to delete out-of-date language associated with the initiation of the training requirements in calendar years 1992 and 1993 and to add an appropriate cross-reference to the detailed training provisions.

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