Inspector General

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In a civilian or military administration, an Inspector General is a high ranking official charged with the mission to inspect and report on some bodies in his field of competency.

1 France
2 Poland
3 United Kingdom
4 United States of America
5 See also

[edit] France

In the French Civil Service, an inspector general (inspecteur général) is a member of a body of civil servants known as inspection générale, generally of a high level, charged with a nationwide mission to inspect some specific services and provide government officials with advice regarding that service. For example:

inspection générale des Finances (Ministry of Finances)
inspection générale de l'Éducation Nationale (Ministry of National Education: teaching issues)
inspection générale de l'administration de l'Éducation Nationale (Ministries of National Education and Research: administrative issues)
French National Police "internal affairs"
- inspection générale de la Police Nationale (except Paris and close suburbs)
- inspection générale des services of the Prefecture of Police (Paris and surroundings).

The inspection générale des Finances is particularly prestigious as a job appointment after studies at the École Nationale d'Administration. In recent decades, many of its members have occupied various high positions in lieue of their traditional mission of inspection. The corps has come under increased criticism for this.

[edit] Poland

The office also existed in the Second Polish Republic and was held, among others, by Józef Piłsudski.

[edit] United Kingdom

In the British tradition, an Inspector-General is usually a senior military officer responsible for the inspection of military units to ensure that they meet appropriate standards of training and efficiency. Unlike American inspectors general, they do not usually have an investigative or law enforcement function.

The commanding officers of the Royal Irish Constabulary (and later of the Royal Ulster Constabulary until replaced by Chief Constable) and many colonial police forces also bore the title of Inspector-General and it is still used in India and some other former British territories.

The Inspector General is also the name given to the Chief Executive Officer of the Insolvency Service.

Inspector and variants of it are rank titles of officers in the police of Britain and most Commonwealth countries.

[edit] United States of America

In the United States, an Inspector General (IG) is a type of investigator charged with examining the actions of a government agency, military organization, or military contractor as a general auditor of their operations to ensure they are operating in compliance with general established policies of the government, to audit the effectiveness of security procedures, or to discover the possibility of misconduct, waste, fraud, theft, or certain types of criminal activity by individuals or groups related to the agency's operation, usually involving some misuse of the organization's funds or credit.

In the United States, there exist numerous Offices of Inspectors General (OIGs) at the federal, state, and local levels. Federally, there exist 57 different and autonomous OIGs, a significant increase since the statutory creation of the initial 12 OIGs by the IG Act of 1978. While all of these OIGs operate separate of one another, their activities in the detection and prevention of fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement of government programs and operations of their parent organization, OIGs share information and some coordination through the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency (PCIE) and the Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency (ECIE), as created or amended in 1992 by Executive Order 12805.

As of 2005, the PCIE comprises 29 OIGs, whose Inspectors General (IG's), the heads of the OIGs, are Presidentially-appointed and confirmed by the Senate. For example, the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is a PCIE OIG.

The ECIE comprises the remaining OIGs, whose IG's are appointed by their respective agency heads. For example, the U.S. Postal Service, Office of Inspector General is an ECIE OIG.

The 57 federal OIGs collectively employ criminal investigators (also known as "special agents") and auditors. In addition, federal OIGs employ forensic auditors, or "Audigators," evaluators, inspectors, administrative investigators, and a variety of other specialists.

In addition to their IG members, both the PCIE and ECIE include non-IG posts, representatives from the federal executive branch, such as executives from the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Personnel Management, the Office of Government Ethics, the Office of Special Counsel, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The PCIE IGs generally enjoy more independence from interference than their ECIE counterparts because PCIE IGs can only be removed, or terminated, from their positions by the President of the United States, whereas ECIE IGs can be terminated by the agency head.[1]

While the IG Act of 1978 requires that IGs be selected based upon their qualifications and not political affiliation, PCIE IGs are considered political appointees and are often selected, if only in part and in addition to their qualifications, because of their political relationships and party affiliation. An example in 2004 of the role political affiliation plays in the selection of an IG, and the resulting pitfalls, can be seen in the Republican appointment (and resignation under fire) of Janet Rehnquist (daughter of conservative U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, William Rehnquist) to the post of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Evidence of the coordination between federal OIGs can be seen by the public through the OIGs' shared website, www.ignet.gov, and the use of shared training facilities, such as the IG Criminal Investigator Academy (IGCIA)and the IG Audit Training Institute (IGATI). Evidence of the OIGs' return on investment to taxpayers can be seen through their Semi-annual Reports to Congress (SARC), most of which are available on each OIG's website.

Since the post-9/11 enactment of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, resulting in the amendment of the IG Act of 1978, Section 6e, most PCIE OIG special agents have had full law enforcement authority to carry firearms, make arrests, and execute search warrants. Prior to this time, most PCIE and some ECIE IG special agents had the equivalent law enforcement authorities as a result of other statutes or annually-required deputation by the U.S. Marshals Service. The 2002 amendment to the Act of 1978 made most deputation of PCIE IG special agents no longer necessary. Some ECIE IG special agents still have full law enforcement authority today, by virtue of this continued deputation. Some OIGs employ no criminal investigators and rely solely on administrative investigators, auditors, and inspectors.

Within the United States Armed Forces, the position of Inspector General is normally part of the personal staff serving a general or flag officer in a command position. The Inspector General's office functions in two ways. To a certain degree they are ombudsmen for their branch of service. However, their primary function is to insure the combat readiness of subordinate units in their command. A visit by an Inspector General (who usually is a field grade officer assisted by experienced company grade and warrant officers, senior noncommissioned officers and experienced civilian employees) will often cause anxiety among the leaders and members of the unit being visited, no matter how ready their unit is for the IG visit.

An inspector general may also investigate noncriminal allegations, to include determining if the matter should be referred for criminal investigation by the service's criminal investigative agency.