Government Executive
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Bringing Transparency to Administrative Law Judge Dockets
The deputy secretary of Labor explains how the department is using data to improve operations and allocate resources.
“Information is data endowed with relevance and purpose.” So noted management guru Peter Drucker, writing in the
Harvard Business Review. At the Labor Department, we have worked to understand the data generated by our organization. We also have worked to understand where there are holes in the existing data. Uncovering these gaps and understanding the data helps provide the management information necessary for effective operations.
The Department enforces more than 180 federal employment laws. Many of these laws have provisions providing that the Department’s Office of Administrative Law Judges (OALJ) shall handle disputes that arise under them. The OALJ is the administrative trial court for the Department. Its 42 judges handle approximately 5,500 cases a year and the office currently has around 7,000 cases pending. In May, OALJ was directed to start providing quarterly reports on various metrics related to their case processing to the Office of the Secretary. This direction was made to help support the department’s effective operational and resource management while at the same time respecting the independence of the OALJ.