[Federal Register Volume 69, Number 228 (Monday, November 29, 2004)]
[Notices]
[Pages 69385-69388]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 04-26228]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Office of the Secretary


Office of Planning and Performance Management; Agency Information 
Collection Activities: Submitted for Office of Management and Budget 
(OMB) Review; Comment Request

AGENCY: Department of the Interior.

ACTION: Notice of extension/renewal of information collection survey.

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SUMMARY: To comply with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act 
(PRA) of 1995, we are submitting to the Office of Management and Budget 
(OMB) for its review and approval a request to extend/renew an 
information collection titled, ``DOI Programmatic Clearance for 
Customer Satisfaction Surveys,'' OMB Control 1040-0001, 
originally approved by OMB in January 2002 and expiring January 31, 
2005. We are also soliciting comments from the public regarding this 
request.

DATES: Please submit written comments by December 29, 2004.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments via fax or e-mail to the Office of 
Information and Regulatory Affairs, OMB, Attention: Desk Officer for 
the Department of the Interior (OMB Control Number 1040-0001). The fax 
number is (202) 395-6566; e-mail address is [email protected].
    Mail or hand-carry a copy of your comments to the Department of the 
Interior; Office of Planning and Performance Management; Attention: 
Sheri Harris; Mail Stop 5258; 1849 C Street, NW., Washington, DC 20240. 
If you wish to e-mail comments, the e-mail address is [email protected]. Reference ``DOI Programmatic Clearance for Customer 
Satisfaction Surveys'' in your e-mail subject line. Include your name 
and return address in your e-mail message and mark your message for 
return receipt.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Sheri L. Harris, Office of Planning 
and Performance Management, telephone (202) 208-7342. You may also 
contact Mrs. Harris to obtain a copy, at no cost, of the collection of 
information statement submitted to OMB.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
    Title: Extension/Renewal of DOI Programmatic Clearance for Customer 
Satisfaction Surveys.
    OMB Control Number: 1040-0001. Renewal/Extension.
    Abstract: DOI is requesting an extension/renewal of its 3-year 
programmatic clearance for customer satisfaction surveys, originally 
approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in January 2002 
and expiring on January 31, 2005. The programmatic clearance enables 
Interior bureaus and offices to conduct customer research through 
external surveys such as questionnaires and comment cards. This 
information is being collected to improve the services and products 
that DOI provides to the public and thus better carry out part of its 
statutory mission. Information collected under the 3-year programmatic 
clearance has led to a number of improvements. For example, customer 
feedback has helped the Bureau of Land Management improve the 
timeliness of several of its permitting processes. A survey of visitors 
to Fish and Wildlife Refuges has identified key issues that will help 
improve visitor satisfaction. The data have also been used to help 
Interior assess organizational performance and accountability through 
GPRA strategic planning and performance measurement. DOI anticipates 
that the information obtained under a renewal of the programmatic 
clearance will continue to lead to revisions in certain agency 
processes and policies, development of guidance related to DOI's 
customer services, and additional improvements in the way we serve the 
Nation.
    From Whom Will Data Be Collected: This proposal seeks to extend/
renew an existing Programmatic Clearance for Customer Satisfaction 
Surveys that allows Interior and its organizational units to collect 
satisfaction information from its customers. Interior defines customers 
as anyone who uses DOI resources, products, or services. This includes 
internal customers (anyone within DOI) as well as external customers 
(e.g., the American public, representatives of the private sector, 
academia, and other government agencies). Depending upon their role in 
specific situations and interactions, citizens and DOI stakeholders and 
partners may also be considered customers. We define stakeholders to 
mean groups or individuals who have an expressed interest in and who 
seek to influence the present and future state of DOI's resources, 
products, and services. Partners are defined as those groups, 
individuals, and agencies who are formally engaged in helping DOI 
accomplish its mission, or with whom DOI has a joint responsibility or 
mission.
    Rationale for Request for Renewal: Interior will request extension/
renewal of its Programmatic Clearance for Customer Satisfaction Surveys 
so that we may better fulfill our Department or

[[Page 69386]]

program-specific statutory missions as well as our government-wide 
responsibilities to provide excellence in government by proactively 
consulting with those we serve to identify opportunities to improve our 
information, services, and products. In addition, customer information 
is needed to meet requirements of the Government Performance and 
Results Act (GPRA) of 1993 (P.L. 103-62), the Administration's Program 
Assessment Rating Tool (PART) recommendations, the President's 
Management Agenda (PMA), and Interior's Citizen-Centered Customer 
Service Policy.
    How Data Will Be Used: The GPRA requires agencies to ``improve 
Federal program effectiveness and public accountability by promoting a 
new focus on results, service quality, and customer satisfaction'' 
(Section 2.b.3). In order to fulfill this responsibility, DOI's bureaus 
and offices must collect data from their respective user groups to (1) 
better understand the needs and desires of the public and (2) respond 
to those needs and desires accordingly. The renewal will provide us 
with the necessary authority to collect these data in the way that we 
do.
    Renewal of the Programmatic Clearance for Customer Satisfaction 
Information is also critical to the Department's ability to collect 
data essential for assessing progress toward achieving the goals 
established in our GPRA Strategic Plan. That plan contains a number of 
performance measures that directly correspond to customer, partner, and 
stakeholder satisfaction with specific services of Interior and its 
bureaus and offices. To accurately report whether or not we met targets 
set for these performance measures, it is imperative for Interior's 
bureaus and offices to collect data from those we serve.
    Interior's Department-wide Customer and Citizen-Centered Service 
Policy admonishes its bureaus and offices to consult and communicate 
with customers to integrate their feedback into our programs and 
business processes in order to improve our service to them. It 
specifically asks Interior bureaus and offices to obtain customer 
satisfaction data on an annual basis and to use these data to implement 
programmatic improvements. The renewal of our Programmatic Clearance 
will assist these organizations in complying with the Departmental 
policy.
    Executive Order (E.O.) 12862 (September 11, 1993), aimed at 
``ensuring the Federal Government provides the highest quality service 
possible to the American people,'' fortifies our mandate by the 
Secretary of the Interior and the Administration to provide ``citizen-
centered government.'' The E.O. discusses surveys as a means for 
determining the kinds and qualities of service desired by the Federal 
Government's customers and for determining satisfaction levels for 
existing service. These voluntary customer surveys will be used to 
ascertain customer satisfaction with DOI's bureaus and offices in terms 
of services and products. Previous customer surveys have provided 
useful information to DOI's bureaus and offices for assessing how well 
we deliver our services and products, making improvements, and 
reporting on GPRA performance goals. The results are used internally, 
and summaries are provided to the OMB on an annual basis and are used 
to satisfy the requirements and spirit of E.O. 12862.
    Which DOI Bureaus and Offices Are Covered by This Proposal: The 
proposed renewal/extension covers all of the organizational units and 
bureaus in DOI. It will enable participating DOI bureaus and offices to 
perform their customer surveys under one programmatic clearance. Under 
this proposed renewal/extension, DOI will request that OMB review the 
procedures and questions for these surveys as a program. Under the 
procedures proposed here, DOI will conduct the necessary quality 
control, including assurances that the individual survey comports with 
the guidelines of the programmatic clearance, and submit the particular 
survey instrument and methodology for expedited review to OMB as we are 
ready to deploy a specific information collection.
    Types of Questions to be Asked: The participating bureaus and 
offices propose to obtain information voluntarily from their customers 
and stakeholders. No one survey will cover all the topic areas; rather, 
these topic areas serve as a guide within which the agencies will 
develop their questions. Questions may be asked in languages other than 
English, e.g., Spanish, where appropriate.
    We protect information submitted by respondents that is considered 
confidential or proprietary under the Freedom of Information Act and in 
accordance with Privacy Act regulations on protecting these data. 
Respondents are informed of this assurance on the survey forms or 
during the course of the survey interview.
    1. Communication/information/education: The range of questions 
envisioned for this topic area will focus on customer satisfaction with 
aspects of communication/information/products/education offered. 
Respondents may be asked for feedback regarding the following 
attributes of the service provided:
     Timeliness.
     Consistency.
     Accuracy.
     Ease of Use and Usefulness.
     Ease of Information Access.
     Helpfulness and Effectiveness.
     Quality.
     Value for fee paid for information/product/service.
     Level of engagement in communications process (i.e., 
whether respondent feels he/she was asked for input and whether or not 
that input was considered).
    2. Disability accessibility: This area will focus on customer 
satisfaction data related to disability access to Interior buildings, 
facilities, trails, electronic information, etc.
    3. Management practices: This area covers questions relating to how 
well customers are satisfied with Interior management practices and 
processes, what improvements they might make to specific processes, and 
whether or not they feel specific issues were addressed and reconciled 
in a timely, courteous, responsive manner.
    4. Resource management: Questions will ask customers and partners 
to provide satisfaction data related to Interior's ability to protect, 
conserve, provide access to, and preserve natural, cultural, and 
recreational resources that we manage.
    5. Other mission management: Questions will ask customers and 
partners to provide responses related to Interior's ability to carry 
out those statutory missions that do not relate to resource management, 
such as serving communities and providing scientific data for decision-
making.
    6. Rules, regulations, policies: This area focuses on obtaining 
feedback from customers regarding fairness, adequacy, and consistency 
in enforcing rules, regulations, and policies for which Interior is 
responsible. It will also help us understand public awareness of rules 
and regulations and whether or not they are articulated in a clear and 
understandable manner.
    7. Service delivery: Questions will seek feedback from customers 
regarding the manner in which services were delivered to them by 
Interior. Attributes will range from the courtesy of Interior staff to 
timeliness of service delivery and staff knowledge of the services 
being delivered.
    8. Technical assistance: Questions developed within this topic area 
will focus on obtaining customer feedback regarding attributes of the 
content and presentation of technical assistance--

[[Page 69387]]

ranging from timeliness, to quality, to usefulness, to the medium used 
(e.g., Web sites, publications, talks, videos), and the skill level of 
staff providing this assistance.
    9. Program-specific: Questions for this area will reflect the 
specific details of a program that pertain to its customer respondents. 
The questions will be developed to address very specific and/or 
technical issues related to the program. The questions will be geared 
toward gaining a better understanding about how to provide specific 
products and services and the public's attitude toward their 
usefulness.
    10. General demographics: Some general demographics may be used to 
augment satisfaction questions in order to better understand the 
customer so that we can improve how we serve that customer. 
Demographics data will range from asking customers how many times they 
have used an Interior service or visited an Interior facility within a 
specific timeframe to their ethnic group and race. Sensitivity will be 
used in developing and selecting questions under this topic area so 
that the customer does not perceive an intrusion upon his/her privacy. 
Additionally, these questions will ONLY be asked as long as they are 
critical to understanding customer satisfaction and the character of 
the customer base. Demographics may also be used as part of a non-
response bias strategy to ensure responses are representative of the 
contact universe.
    This effort does not duplicate any other survey being done by DOI 
or other Federal agencies. Other Federal agencies are conducting user 
surveys but are not soliciting comments on the delivery of DOI or DOI 
bureau/office products and services. As part of this effort, DOI 
consulted with other agencies, including the Department of Agriculture 
and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, who conduct surveys of 
similar customers, with academic experts in the field of statistics, 
and with professional consulting groups who design and conduct 
statistically valid surveys.
    Anticipated Public Burden: We estimate approximately 60,000 
respondents submit DOI customer satisfaction surveys and comment cards 
each annually. The average public burden to complete a customer survey 
is 15 minutes. We also estimate that there are approximately 60,000 
respondents submitting comment cards annually, with the average public 
burden estimated at 3 minutes. Given these estimates, DOI anticipates a 
total time budget of 18,000 hours per year for the proposed renewal.
    Respondent types include coal operators, contractors/vendors, 
environmental groups, other governments (State, local, foreign), grant 
recipients, American Indians/Alaska Natives, industry groups, insular 
governments, interested publics (including community and specific-
interest groups), law enforcement, mining companies, public information 
centers, scientific data users, universities/educators, utility 
companies, and visitors/recreationists.
    We estimate, based on a $15 per hour valuation of volunteer time 
and the projected budget hours, an approximate aggregate cost to 
respondents of $270,000. Burden includes the total time, effort, or 
financial resources expended to generate, maintain, retain, or disclose 
or provide the information, including: (1) Reviewing instructions; (2) 
developing, acquiring, installing, and utilizing technology and systems 
for purposes of collecting, validating, verifying, processing, 
maintaining, disclosing, and providing information; (3) adjusting the 
existing ways to comply with any previously applicable instructions and 
requirements; (4) training personnel to respond to a collection of 
information; (5) searching data sources; (6) completing and reviewing 
the collection of information; and (7) transmitting or otherwise 
disclosing information.
    Estimated Annual Reporting and Recordkeeping ``Non-Hours Cost'' 
Burden: Agencies must estimate both the ``hour'' burden and ``non-hour 
cost'' burden to respondents or record keepers resulting from the 
collection of information. We have not identified any non-hour cost 
burdens for the information collection aspects of the programmatic 
customer satisfaction survey. Therefore, if you have costs to generate, 
maintain, and disclose this information, you should comments and 
provide your total capital and startup cost components or annual 
operation, maintenance, and purchase of service components. You should 
describe the methods you use to estimate major cost factors, including 
system and technology acquisition, expected useful life of capital 
equipment, discount rate(s), and the period of which you incur costs. 
Capital and startup costs include, among other items, computers and 
software you purchase to prepare for collecting information, 
monitoring, and record storage facilities. Generally, your estimates 
should not include equipment or services purchased: (1) Before October 
1, 1995; (2) to comply with requirements not associated with the 
information collection; (3) for reasons other than to provide 
information or keep records for the Government; or (4) as part of 
customary and usual business or private practices.
    Methodology: All requests to collect information under the auspices 
of this proposed renewal will be carefully evaluated to ensure 
consistency with the intent, requirements, and boundaries of this 
programmatic clearance. Interior's Office of Planning and Performance 
Management will conduct an administrative review of each request and 
oversee technical reviews to ensure statistical validity and soundness. 
All information collection instruments will be designed and deployed 
based upon acceptable statistical practices and sampling methodologies, 
where appropriate, and will be used to obtain consistent, valid, data 
that are representative of the sample, account for non-response bias, 
and target response rates at or above levels needed to obtain 
statistically useful results.
    All submissions under the program of expedited approval must 
include a description of the survey methodology. This description must 
be specific and describe each of the following: (a) Respondent 
universe, (b) the sampling plan and all sampling procedures, including 
how individual respondents will be selected, (c) how the information 
collection instrument will be administered, (d) expected response rate 
and confidence levels, and (e) strategies for dealing with potential 
non-response bias. A description of any pre-testing and peer review of 
the methods and/or instrument is also highly encouraged.
    Improved information technology will be used, when possible, to 
reduce the burden on the public and to comply with requirements of the 
Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA). Electronic mail may be 
used to introduce and distribute information collection instruments to 
a sample of customers. In some cases, the instruments may be web-
enabled so that respondents can complete them online, enabling the 
response analysis to be automated. In all cases, appropriate non-
response bias strategies will be used to ensure that responses are 
representative of the contact universe.
    Public Disclosure Statement: The PRA provides that a Federal agency 
may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, 
a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB 
Control Number. Until OMB approves a collection of information, you are 
not obligated to respond.
    Comments: PRA section 3506(c)(2)(A) requires each agency `` * * * 
to provide notice * * * and otherwise consult

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with members of the public and affected agencies concerning each 
proposed collection of information * * *'' Agencies must specifically 
solicit comments to: (a) Evaluate whether the proposed collection of 
information is necessary for the agency to perform its duties, 
including whether the information is useful; (b) evaluate the accuracy 
of the agency's estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of 
information; (c) enhance the quality, usefulness, and clarity of the 
information to be collected; and (d) minimize the burden on the 
respondents, including the use of automated collection techniques or 
other forms of information technology. Furthermore, we are interested 
in any comments you may have to increase response rates.
    To comply with the public consultation process, on May 10, 2004, we 
published a Federal Register Notice (Volume 69, Number 90, page 25916-
25918) announcing that we would submit this renewal/extension request 
to OMB for approval. The notice provided the required 60-day comment 
period. One public comment was received during the comment period and 
we have addressed the individual's concern by responding directly to 
him and making appropriate revisions to our renewal/extension request.
    If you wish to comment in response to this notice, send your 
comments directly to the offices listed under the ADDRESSES section of 
this notice. OMB has up to 60 days to approve or disapprove the 
information collection, but may respond after 30 days. Therefore, to 
ensure maximum consideration, OMB should receive public comments by 
December 29, 2004.
    Public Comment Policy: Our practice is to make comments, including 
names and home addresses of respondents, available for public review 
during regular business hours. Individual respondents may request that 
we withhold their home address from the record, which we will honor to 
the extent allowable by law. There may be circumstances in which we 
would withhold from the record a respondent's identity, as allowable by 
law. If you as a commenter, wish us to withhold your name and/or 
address, you must state this prominently at the beginning of your 
comment. However, we will not consider anonymous comments. We will make 
all submissions from organizations or business, and from individuals 
identifying themselves as representatives of organizations or 
businesses, available for public inspection in their entirety.
    DOI Information Collection Contact: Office of Planning and 
Performance Management (202) 208-1818.

    Dated: November 17, 2004.
Richard T. Beck,
Director, Office of Planning and Performance Management.
[FR Doc. 04-26228 Filed 11-26-04; 8:45 am]
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