A new analysis of US government programmes has discovered that the Bush
administration is doing more on CSR than some people think.
The investigation by the Government Accountability Office, an
independent body that studies, on behalf of Congress, how the federal
government spends taxpayers’ money, found that although the government
has no over-arching CSR policy, it does have more than 50 federal
programmes and activities to promote CSR.
The programmes are spread across 12 government agencies and include
initiatives such as a Department of Commerce CSR training scheme for
its commercial service officers and a requirement by the Overseas
Private Investment Corporation that companies meet certain social
responsibility criteria before they can use its services.
However, the GAO says many of the programmes have small budgets and few
staff, and are not linked into any wider government CSR strategy.
The Kenan Institute for Private Enterprise, a US institution that
studies corporate citizenship, said the results revealed the ‘disarray’
on CSR at the heart of the US administration.
‘It doesn’t surprise us that there are so many initiatives – if
anything there are too many,’ said Susan Aaronson, senior fellow at the
institute. ‘The programmes lack coherence, clearly articulated
principles, long-term funding and concerted action. What’s missing is
something to bind them together at the top level. There’s no mission
statement or strategy on CSR from the US government – in contrast to,
say, the government in the UK.’
