5: More Effective Regulation Through a Stronger Workforce

Ensure a world-class professional workforce, effective and efficient operations, and adequate resources to accomplish the agency's mission.

Other Information:

One aspect of the FDA's work has remained, and will remain, unchanged: the critical importance of the FDA's professional workforce for the success of the agency and for its ability to maintain the high level of public trust in its activities. An organization that can keep up with the rapid changes in the industries that it regulates, and is capable of developing and implementing effective and innovative public health measures, requires a very special workforce. The agency's mission depends more than ever on a solid cadre of experienced physicians, toxicologists, chemists, statisticians, mathematicians and other highly qualified and dedicated professionals. Their expertise is essential for making the FDA's regulatory decisions balanced and fair, and for keeping the agency on the cutting edge of the technology and sciences used in medicines, foods, and the other products the FDA regulates. As the FDA's regulatory mission grows more complex, it is only by becoming consistently more efficient, seeking opportunities to improve its own management, and realizing the efficiencies to be gained from improvements in organization, infrastructure, and information technology, that the agency can continue to accomplish its growing and diverse mission with excellence. The FDA's principal tool for achieving all of these goals is its workforce. Unlike most other public health agencies, the FDA does not achieve its health mission through grants or financing health-related services. Instead, the FDA's principal public health resource is its professional staff. There are almost 1,500 people with Ph.D.'s at the FDA and more than 400 with medical degrees. The money that the FDA is appropriated each year for its mission primarily gets spent at the FDA on this staff. Two-thirds of the FDA's budget is spent on its workforce. The FDA's contributions are primarily a reflection of its professional services.

Objective(s):

5.1: Workforce Quality, Diversity, and Motivation

5.2: Management Efficiency and Effectiveness

5.3: External Stakeholders

5.4: IT

5.5: FDA Headquarters Consolidation

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