Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the effectiveness of the Navy inspectors general activities, focusing on a draft revision of Instruction 5040.7K which prescribes the objectives, policies, and procedures that inspectors general staff are to follow when inspecting Navy units. GAO found that: (1) the objectives and policies of the Naval Command Inspection Program are stated differently throughout the draft instruction; (2) the draft instruction should include an initial section that clearly states inspection objectives and policies; (3) the term inspection is not consistently defined or used in the draft instruction; (4) the instruction does not require the use of inspection guides; (5) the instruction should expand the current requirement for inspection guides in order to better define the inspection approach, the areas to be inspected, and the types of assessments and techniques that should be used; (6) the instruction does not address conducting trend analyses or developing and using performance measures for assessing the effectiveness of the inspected unit; (7) the instruction does not require full reporting of the scope, methodology, and results of each inspected area; and (8) the instruction should include a standardized format for inspection reports.
