113 S760 IS: Government Customer Service Improvement Act of 2013
U.S. Senate
2013-04-18
text/xml
EN
Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.
1.This Act may be cited as
the Government Customer Service
Improvement Act of 2013
.
2.In this Act:
(1)The
term agency—
(A)means an
Executive agency (as defined under section 105 of title 5, United States Code)
that provides significant services directly to the public or other entity;
and
(B)does not include
an Executive agency if the President determines that this Act should not apply
to the Executive agency for national security reasons.
(2)The
term customer, with respect to an agency, means any individual or
entity that is directly served by an agency.
3.Development of
customer service standards
(a)Government-Wide
standards
(1)The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall
develop Government-wide standards for customer service delivery, which shall be
included in the Federal Government Performance Plan required under section 1115
of title 31, United States Code.
(2)The
standards developed under paragraph (1) shall include—
(A)Government-wide
goals for continuous service improvements and efforts to modernize service
delivery; and
(B)where
appropriate, Government-wide target response times for telephone calls,
electronic mail, mail, benefit processing, and payments.
(b)
(1)The Chief Performance Officer for each agency shall
establish customer service standards in accordance with the Government-wide
standards established under subsection (a), which shall be included in the
Agency Performance Plans required under section 1115 of title 31, United States
Code.
(2)Agency
standards established under paragraph (1) shall include, if appropriate—
(A)target call wait
times during peak and non-peak hours;
(B)target response
times for correspondence, both by mail and electronic mail;
(C)procedures for
ensuring all applicable metrics are incorporated into service agreements with
nongovernmental individuals and entities;
(D)target response
times for processing benefits and making payments; and
(E)recommendations
for effective publication of customer service contact information, including a
mailing address, telephone number, and email address.
(c)The Performance
Improvement Officer for each agency shall collect information from customers of
the agency regarding the quality of customer service provided by the agency.
Each agency shall include the information collected under this subsection in
the performance report made available by the agency under section 1116 of title
31, United States Code.
(d)Annual
performance updateThe
Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall include achievements by
agencies in meeting the customer service performance measures and standards
developed under subsection (a) in each update on agency performance required
under section 1116 of title 31, United States Code.
4.Service
improvement unit pilot program
(a)The
Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall establish a pilot
program, to be known as the Service Improvement Unit Pilot Program (in this
section referred to as the pilot program), to provide assistance
to agencies that do not meet the Government-wide standards established under
section 3.
(b)The
heads of agencies with expertise in change management, process improvement, and
information technology innovation shall detail employees to the Office of
Management and Budget to work on the pilot program, based on the expertise and
skills required to address service improvement goals.
(c)Under
the pilot program, the Office of Management and Budget shall work with agencies
that are not meeting the customer service standards and performance measures
established under section 3 to improve and modernize service delivery to
develop solutions, including—
(1)evaluating the
efforts of the agency to improve service delivery;
(2)developing a plan
to improve within existing resources and by drawing on expertise and assistance
from other agencies (including the Office of Management and Budget) where
necessary;
(3)monitoring
implementation by the agency of the plan developed under paragraph (2) until
the customer service standards and performance measures are met; and
(4)submitting to the
Director of the Office of Management and Budget monthly reports on the
progress being made to improve service at the agency until the customer
service standards are met.
(d)Not
later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Director of the
Office of Management and Budget shall submit to Congress a report on the
accomplishments and outcomes of the pilot program and any recommendations
relating to achieving the customer service standards and performance measures
established under section 3.
(e)The
Administrator of General Services shall provide administrative and other
support in order to implement the pilot program under this section. The heads
of agencies shall, as appropriate and to the extent permitted by law, provide
at the request of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget up to 2
personnel authorizations who have expertise in change management, process
improvement, and information technology innovation to support the pilot
program.
(f)The
authority to carry out the pilot program shall terminate 2 years after the date
of enactment of this Act.
5.
(a)In
this section, the term agency has the meaning given that term in
section 551 of title 5, United States Code.
(b)
(1)Except as provided in paragraph (2) and not later than 30
days after the date of enactment of this Act, and every month thereafter, the
Director of the Office of Personnel Management shall submit to Congress and the
Comptroller General of the United States, and issue publicly (including on the
Web site of the Office of Personnel Management), a report that—
(A)for each agency,
evaluates the timeliness, completeness, and accuracy of information submitted
by the agency relating to employees of the agency who are retiring; and
(B)indicates—
(i)the
total number of applications for retirement benefits, lump sum death benefits,
court ordered benefits, phased retirement, and disability retirement that are
pending action by the Office of Personnel Management; and
(ii)the number of
months each such application has been pending.
(2)Suspension of
reporting requirementParagraph (1) shall not apply to the
Director of the Office of Personnel Management for any month immediately
following a 3-year period in which there are no applications described in
paragraph (1)(B) that have been pending for more than 60 days.
(c)The Director of the Office of Personnel Management shall
establish—
(1)a timetable for
the completion of each component of the retirement systems modernization
project of the Office of Personnel Management, including all data elements
required for accurate completion of adjudication; and
(2)the date by which
all Federal payroll processing entities will electronically transmit all
personnel data to the Office of Personnel Management.
(d)The Office of Personnel Management shall include a
detailed statement regarding the progress of the Office of Personnel Management
in completing the retirement systems modernization project of the Office of
Personnel Management and recommendations to Congress regarding the additional
resources needed to fully implement the retirement systems modernization
project of the Office of Personnel Management in each budget request of the
Office of Personnel Management submitted as part of the preparation of the
budget of the President submitted to Congress under section 1105(a) of title
31, United States Code.
6.No increase in
expendituresIt is the sense
of Congress that no additional funds should be appropriated to carry out this
Act.