The Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) announced plans this week to implement an online portal under which federal contractors will be able to upload and submit their written Affirmative Action Programs (AAPs) when required, as well as require all covered contractors – not just those scheduled for a compliance audit – to certify annually that they have developed and maintained AAPs in accordance with OFCCP’s regulations.
The verification portal proposal, in the form of an information collection request (ICR), was published for comment by OFCCP this week, as required under the federal Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), and interested parties will have until November 13, 2020, to submit comments on the proposal to OFCCP. OFCCP then will review the comments and submit the ICR to OMB. That in turn will trigger another public comment period, this time with comments to OMB before OMB decides to approve the proposal or send it back to OFCCP for further work.
Because the process described in the preceding paragraph will take several months, federal contractors undergoing a compliance evaluation will continue to be required to submit their AAPs to OFCCP under existing procedures.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.