Federal Reports

The OIG Audit office initiated this audit based upon an assessment of program risks. Our audit objective was to determine whether the U.S. AbilityOne Commission’s (Commission) enterprise risk management (ERM) process is effective and used to make risk-based decisions. 

Although the Commission has designed and implemented a formal ERM program, the OIG determined that the ERM program is not fully effective. This could impact the Commission’s ability to make fully informed risk-based decisions. Specifically, we found that the Commission’s ERM process and related internal controls need improvements, and the Commission lacked the ERM training to identify and correct these improvement areas. 

The OIG recommended that the Commission ensure that the appropriate individuals are trained through a structured ERM program training, assess and update existing ERM policies and procedures, and research and adopt an appropriate ERM maturity model. We also recommended that the Commission develop and implement effective key controls and results assessment, include a process in the ERM program to document management’s determination of key process decisions for its other process considerations, and develop and implement a process for tracking the consolidation of risks.

The purpose of this report is to summarize the OIG’s oversight and investigative work involving Federal student assistance programs and operations over the past 6 FYs—FY 2019 through FY 2024 and to provide the office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) with context on historical areas of weakness involving internal controls. To identify common themes across internal control vulnerabilities identified during our audit work, we evaluated recommendations made in OIG reports to address those vulnerabilities and assessed their correlation with each internal control component. And, in this effort, we analyzed complaints received by the OIG Hotline specific to Federal student assistance programs and FSA operations to identify trends and fraud indicators, summarized investigative results related to student aid fraud, and assessed their correlation to internal controls. We also took a close look at a type of fraud that accounts for a large portion of our student aid fraud investigative caseload—student aid fraud rings.

The results of this effort are intended to provide context on historical areas of weakness and vulnerabilities in FSA’s internal controls identified through the OIG’s audit work and provide insight gleaned from the OIG’s investigative work on the importance of strengthening internal controls to help mitigate the risk of fraud in the Federal student assistance programs. By strengthening its internal controls, FSA can better ensure that Federal student assistance programs are carried out as required, achieve the desired results, and that vital Federal student aid assistance reach the intended recipients.

This Office of Inspector General (OIG) Healthcare Facility Inspection program report describes the results of a focused evaluation of the care provided at the Birmingham VA Health Care System.

This evaluation focused on five key content domains:
• Culture
• Environment of care
• Patient safety
• Primary care
• Veteran-centered safety net

The OIG issued four recommendations for improvement in two domains:
1. Environment of care
• Separation of clean and dirty equipment and supplies
• Clean and safe environment
• Communication with sensory-impaired veterans
2. Patient safety
• Identify opportunities for improvement, implement action plans, and evaluate actions for sustained improvement