Are you a federal contractor? There’s a bit of good news for you from Washington. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is bringing back the PDN–predetermination notice.

In recent years, OFCCP had been reserving PDNs for systemic discrimination cases, allowing regional and district offices discretion on whether to issue PDNs prior to Notices of Violation (NOVs). February 27, 2018, OFCCP Director Ondray Harris put an end to that with is directive. He ordered the OFCCP to issue PDNs “at the conclusion of compliance evaluations where contractors have not provided adequate explanations to proposed discrimination findings.” This goes for both individual and systemic discrimination allegations.

The directive explains, “As part of OFCC’s ongoing efforts to achieve consistency across regional and district offices, increase transparency about preliminary findings with contractors, and encourage communication throughout the compliance evaluations process, OFCCP is instituting a uniform approach to the use of PDNs in compliance evaluations where the agency believes discrimination findings may exist.”

The directive also directs the Office of the Solicitor to review PDNs before submission to the OFCCP’s national office for review and approval.

So, no more discretion for regional offices. Transparency just became a mandate. Yea!