The Office of Compliance released its annual report to Congress today, highlighting a year of work to protect the health, safety, accessibility and workplace rights of employees and visitors of the legislative branch.

“This report takes a comprehensive look at the work performed by the Office of Compliance, ” said Acting Executive Director Tamara Chrisler. “The report goes beyond the Congressional Accountability Act’s mandate of providing statistical information. It highlights the Office’s accomplishments in each of its programs and shares our continued efforts to be a resource to the legislative branch.”

This Fiscal Year 2006 Annual Report details the Office of the General Counsel’s great strides in meeting its mandate to ensure that periodic inspections are performed at least once each Congress. General Counsel Peter Ames Eveleth and his staff significantly reduced a backlog of requestor-initiated OSH-ADA inspection cases, and also completed a 96% baseline inspection of the Washington, DC metropolitan area, a benchmark unmatched in the history of the Office of Compliance.

“We now have an accurate picture of health and safety conditions in every covered facility in the metropolitan Washington, DC area,” said General Counsel Peter Ames Eveleth. “The bigger challenge, however, is to assure that the more than 13,000 hazards identified during these inspections are promptly abated and that employing offices put in place safety programs that will prevent the occurrence of such a large number of hazards in the future.”

The Office of Compliance also reported continued success in the areas of confidential dispute resolution and education and outreach. The Office set out to increase web site hits and downloads by 10% in Fiscal Year 2006, but exceeded expectations when both increased by nearly 25%. The Office of Compliance reported an average close to 400,000 web site visitors in Fiscal Year 2006, which was an all-time high.

“This annual report not only provides a summary of the Office’s achievements in FY06, but it also gives a preview of what’s to come in FY07. The Office plans to build upon its FY06 successes to make FY07 a banner year – one with stronger stakeholder relations; transparency in our operations; continued use of best practices; and targeted education, safety and health, and dispute resolution services to the legislative branch,” Chrisler said.