November 18, 2020

Management Challenges at the Department of Energy – Fiscal Year 2021

In compliance with the Reports Consolidation Act of 2000, the Office of Inspector General annually identifies what it considers to be the most significant management challenges facing the Department of Energy.  The Office of Inspector General’s goal is to focus attention on significant issues with the objective of working with Department officials to enhance the effectiveness of agency programs.  The Management Challenges Report should be a valuable tool to assist the Department to successfully fulfill its mission of ensuring America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental, and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions. 

Historically, our Management Challenges Report identified broad areas of concern for the Department.  This year, the Office of Inspector General significantly revised how the Management Challenges Report was compiled and presented to focus on more specific goals and challenges that the Department is facing.  We coordinated with Department mission elements to identify the most pressing challenges, with an eye toward better focusing on practical issues where near-term progress is achievable.  Our intent is to provide the Secretary and other policymakers with a more useful document containing specific and actionable challenge areas where meaningful improvements may be realized in the near term. 

We hope that the new methodology used to identify management challenges within this report will prove more useful to senior Department officials and will enable action to address the issues they are facing.