Executive Order 13793: Dept of Veterans Affairs

What the Executive Order says

Executive Order (EO) 13793 is entitled "Improving Accountability and Whistleblower Protection at the Department of Veterans Affairs".  This EO establishes within the Department of Veterans Affairs an Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection.

Section 1

This section outlines the purpose of the EO.  It is to improve accountability and to better protect whistleblowers at the Department of Veterans Affairs.  There is a history of veterans not being able to get adequate care through the Department of Veterans Affairs.  The populist view has been that this is due to government employees behaving badly and being inefficient.  To improve the care for Veterans, this Executive Order will encourage the employees to report wrongdoings to the newly established office since obviously the management of the department is not able to affect changes to improve care.

Section 2

This section has 3 subsections.  The first subsection sets a deadline to implement this EO within 45 days.  It is not obvious why it states "and to the extent permitted by law" is included as a condition to the establishment of the office.  Does this suggest that there are laws and/or regulations which prevent such an action?  The funding for the office will come from the VA, subject to the availability of appropriations.  It is entirely possible that despite this EO, the office could have no funding and as a result be neutered.
The second subsection defines the role of the Special Assistant, or Executive Director of the Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection.  This lists the following duties: help discipline and/or fire non-performing employees or managers; propose changes to legislation that would make it easier to discipline or fire non-performing employees or managers; act as an ombudsman for veterans' complaints; investigate and correct wrongdoing in the department; and protect whistleblowers.
The third subsection directs that if some of these functions overlap with currently in place organizational structure, the new office should not duplicate the effort but rather integrate this new office with any existing offices or departments.

Section 3

This section includes the necessary legal caveats to ensure the constitutionality of the EO.

My Commentary

On the basis of inclusion of 2(c), this seems like a giveaway that there are already some parts of the organization that do many if not all of the functions defined in 2(b).  This suggests that there is very much more optics involved than substance.  Additionally, when looking at the functions in 2(b), it frankly gives the appearance that the Special Assistant is really effectively the same as the "political officer" on Soviet and WWII German submarines, who are there to assure loyalty and that the official propaganda is maintained while out of contact with headquarters.  While the ombudsman function on behalf of veterans is laudable, the rest of this seems to encourage that employees and managers can report others for ulterior motives which would make the work environment even more toxic than what it is.
The issues at the VA are serious, complex and disgraceful.  They do need to be fixed.  This EO is not a serious effort to address the problems, some of which are questions of adequate funding and others which comes from already poisoned work environment.  I would love to have my cynicism proven wrong here, but addressing the problems involves a lot of detailed analysis of current systems and service levels and corrective action will be gradual and require real leadership; leadership of the kind not often seen in this administration.