Regulatory Management: Implementation of Selected OMB Responsibilities
Under the Paperwork Reduction Act (Letter Report, 07/09/98,
GAO/GGD-98-120).

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed how the Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has implemented selected
responsibilities assigned to it by the 1995 Paperwork Reduction Act
(PRA), focusing on: (1) how OIRA reviews and controls paperwork; (2)
OIRA's oversight of federal information resources management (IRM)
activities; and (3) how OIRA keeps Congress and congressional committees
fully and currently informed about major activities under the act.

GAO noted that: (1) OIRA has taken between 3,000 and 5,000 actions on
agencies' information collection requests in each year since the 1995
PRA was enacted; (2) at the same time, 20 to 25 OIRA staff members
assigned to this task were responsible for reviewing the substance of
about 500 significant rules each year and carrying out other statutory,
executive order, and policy responsibilities; (3) although OIRA has
provided agencies with some guidance on how they can estimate paperwork
burden, the guidance is not very specific; (4) as required by the PRA,
OIRA has set both governmentwide and agency-specific burden-reduction
goals; (5) however, OIRA officials said they do not believe the act
requires that the agencies' burden-reduction goals need to total to the
governmentwide goal; (6) also, OIRA established the agencies' goals for
fiscal years 1996 and 1997 at nearly the end of each of those years; (7)
OIRA has not formally designated any pilot projects under the PRA to
test alternative policies and procedures to minimize information
collection burden; (8) OIRA officials said that other burden reduction
efforts are under way, and pilot projects used to satisfy another
statute meet the PRA's requirements; (9) OIRA's annual reports do not
provide a central focus on how agencies should use information resources
to improve agency and program performance, and they only partially
describe agencies' progress in applying IRM to improve their performance
and the accomplishment of their missions--elements that the PRA requires
in a governmentwide IRM strategic plan; (10) however, the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) does not explicitly require agencies'
information collection requests and budget submissions to contain all of
the elements that the PRA specifically mentions as agencies' general IRM
responsibilities; (11) OIRA officials said that they keep Congress and
congressional committees fully and currently informed of major
activities under the act through their annual reports, the Chief
Information Officer Council's strategic plan, and other reports and
informational mechanisms; (12) however, OIRA's and other reports do not
contain all of the specific information that the act requires; and (13)
although the annual reports present the changes in burden-hour estimates
from year to year, OIRA has not clearly notified Congress in those
reports or elsewhere that the burden reduction goals contemplated in the
PRA are unlikely to be met, or that OIRA believes that the sum of the
agency-specific goals need not equal the governmentwide goal, or that
other PRA-required actions have not been taken.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  GGD-98-120
     TITLE:  Regulatory Management: Implementation of Selected OMB 
             Responsibilities Under the Paperwork Reduction Act
      DATE:  07/09/98
   SUBJECT:  Information resources management
             Agency missions
             Interagency relations
             Data collection
             Reporting requirements
             Strategic planning
             Congressional/executive relations
             Statutory law

             
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Cover
================================================================ COVER


Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight, Restructuring, and
the District of Columbia, Committee on Governmental Affairs, U.S. 
Senate

July 1998

REGULATORY MANAGEMENT -
IMPLEMENTATION OF SELECTED OMB
RESPONSIBILITIES UNDER THE
PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT

GAO/GGD-98-120

Regulatory Management:  OMB's Responsibilities

(410253)


Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV

  EPA - Environmental Protection Agency
  CIO - Chief Information Officer
  GILS - Government Information Locator Service
  ICB - information collection budget
  IRM - information resources management
  IRS - Internal Revenue Service
  OIRA - Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
  OMB - Office of Management and Budget
  OSHA - Occupational Safety and Health Administration
  PRA - Paperwork Reduction Act
  RISC - Regulatory Information Service Center
  SBREFA - Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act
  UMRA - Unfunded Mandates Reform Act

Letter
=============================================================== LETTER


B-279668

July 9, 1998

The Honorable Sam Brownback
Chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight,
 Restructuring, and the District of Columbia
Committee on Governmental Affairs
United States Senate

Dear Mr.  Chairman: 

The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1980 established the Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) to provide central agency leadership and
oversight of governmentwide efforts to reduce unnecessary paperwork
burden and improve the management of information resources.  However,
by the end of fiscal year 1995, federal agencies' annual paperwork
burden-hour estimate had risen from about 1.5 billion hours in 1980
to about 6.9 billion hours.  The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995
amended and recodified the original act and was intended to, among
other things, minimize the paperwork burden for individuals, small
businesses, and others resulting from the collection of information
by or for the federal government.  The 1995 act reaffirmed and
expanded OIRA's PRA responsibilities, and the drafters of the
legislation indicated that improving OIRA's leadership would be one
of the key factors in determining whether the act was successful. 

This report responds to your request that we assess how OIRA has
implemented selected responsibilities assigned to it by the 1995
PRA.\1 As requested, we compared OIRA's actions to the act's
requirements in three areas of OIRA's information collection
responsibilities. 

  -- We looked at how OIRA reviews and controls paperwork, including
     (1) reviewing and approving agencies' information collection
     requests; (2) establishing and overseeing guidance for
     estimating information collection burden; (3) setting annual
     governmentwide goals for the reduction of that burden by at
     least 10 percent in fiscal years 1996 and 1997, 5 percent during
     the next 4 fiscal years, and setting annual agency goals that
     reduce paperwork to the "maximum practicable opportunity"; and
     (4) conducting pilot projects to test alternative policies and
     procedures to minimize information collection burden. 

  -- We examined OIRA's oversight of federal information resources
     management (IRM) activities, including developing and
     maintaining a governmentwide IRM plan and periodically reviewing
     selected agency IRM activities to determine their ability to
     improve agencies' performance and accomplish agencies' missions. 

  -- We reviewed how OIRA keeps Congress and congressional committees
     fully and currently informed about major activities under the
     act. 


--------------------
\1 The PRA requires the Director of OMB to delegate the authority to
administer all functions under the act to the Administrator of OIRA
but does not relieve the OMB Director of responsibility for the
administration of those functions.  In this report, we have adopted
the convention of using "OIRA" instead of "OMB" wherever the act
assigns responsibilities to OMB or the Director.  Also, unless
otherwise identified, we use the acronym "PRA" to refer to the 1995
act. 


   RESULTS IN BRIEF
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :1

OIRA has taken between 3,000 and 5,000 actions (e.g., approvals,
disapprovals, and extensions) on agencies' information collection
requests in each year since the 1995 PRA was enacted.  At the same
time, the 20 to 25 OIRA staff members assigned to this task were
responsible for reviewing the substance of about 500 significant
rules each year and carrying out other statutory, executive order,
and policy responsibilities.  Although OIRA has provided agencies
with some guidance on how they can estimate paperwork burden, the
guidance is not very specific.  As required by the PRA, OIRA has set
both governmentwide and agency-specific burden-reduction goals. 
However, OIRA officials said they do not believe the act requires
that the agencies' burden-reduction goals need to total to the
governmentwide goal.  Also, OIRA established the agencies' goals for
fiscal years 1996 and 1997 at nearly the end of each of those fiscal
years.  OIRA has not formally designated any pilot projects under the
PRA to test alternative policies and procedures to minimize
information collection burden.  OIRA officials said that other burden
reduction efforts are under way, and pilot projects used to satisfy
another statute meet the PRA's requirements.  However, in most cases
those other pilots predate the act and do not appear to have been
initiated in response to the act's requirements. 

OIRA officials said that information contained in their annual
reports to Congress under the PRA, the president's budget, and a
strategic plan from the Chief Information Officers' (CIO) Council
satisfy the PRA requirements for a governmentwide IRM strategic
plan.\2

However, those documents do not provide a central focus on how
agencies should use information resources to improve agency and
program performance, and they only partially describe agencies'
progress in applying IRM to improve their performance and the
accomplishment of their missions--elements that the PRA requires in a
governmentwide IRM strategic plan.  OIRA officials and staff said
that they satisfy the PRA requirement that OIRA periodically review
selected agency IRM activities through a variety of mechanisms,
including their routine reviews of agencies' information collection
requests, working through the CIO Council, and as part of the budget
formulation and execution process within OMB.  However, OMB does not
explicitly require agencies' information collection requests and
budget submissions to contain all the elements that the PRA
specifically mentions as agencies' general IRM responsibilities. 
Neither do OIRA's efforts through the CIO Council address all of
those elements.  Therefore, it is not clear how those activities
constitute comprehensive reviews of agencies' IRM responsibilities
under the PRA. 

OIRA officials said that they keep Congress and congressional
committees fully and currently informed of major activities under the
act through their annual reports, the CIO Council's strategic plan,
and other reports and informational mechanisms.  However, OIRA's
annual reports do not contain all of the specific information that
the act requires.  Also, although the annual reports present the
changes in burden-hour estimates from year to year, OIRA has not
clearly notified Congress in those reports or elsewhere that the
burden-reduction goals contemplated in the PRA are unlikely to be
met, or that OIRA believes that the sum of the agency-specific goals
need not equal the governmentwide goal.  Neither has it informed
Congress or congressional committees that other PRA-required actions
have not been taken. 


--------------------
\2 The CIO Council was established by Executive Order 13011 on July
16, 1996, as the principal interagency forum to improve agencies'
information resources management practices.  It is becoming a key
vehicle by which OMB and the agencies collaborate in carrying out the
PRA and the Clinger-Cohen Act, 40 U.S.C.  Chapter 25 (formerly the
Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996).  The Council
is composed of the CIOs and the Deputy CIOs of the 28 largest federal
agencies as well as senior officials from OMB and the National
Archives and Records Administration. 


   BACKGROUND
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :2

The 1995 PRA reaffirms the principles in the original act and gives
significant new responsibilities to OIRA and executive branch
agencies.  For example, the act requires OIRA to "oversee the use of
information resources to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of
governmental operations to serve agency missions," and it makes more
explicit agencies' responsibilities in developing proposed
collections of information and submitting them to OIRA for review. 
Like the original statute, the 1995 act requires agencies to justify
any collection of information from the public by establishing the
need and intended use of the information, estimating the burden that
the collection will impose on the respondents, and showing that the
collection is the least burdensome way to gather the information. 
Agencies must receive OIRA approval for each information collection
request before it is implemented.  The PRA also assigns OIRA other
responsibilities, including information dissemination, statistical
policy and coordination, records management, and information
technology. 

Congress has also given OIRA other statutory responsibilities related
to regulatory management.  For example: 

  -- The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) requires OIRA to collect
     agencies' written statements describing the costs and benefits
     of their rules and to forward those statements to the
     Congressional Budget Office.  UMRA also required OIRA to
     establish pilot projects in at least two agencies to test
     regulatory approaches that reduce the burden on small
     governments and to submit annual reports to Congress detailing
     agencies' compliance with the act. 

  -- The Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996
     (SBREFA) requires OIRA to designate certain rules as "major" and
     therefore subject to a 60 day congressional review period. 
     SBREFA also amended the Regulatory Flexibility Act and required
     OIRA to serve on advocacy review panels involving rules that the
     Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Occupational
     Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) intend to propose that
     the agencies believe will have a significant economic effect on
     a substantial number of small entities. 

  -- Section 645(a) of the 1997 Treasury, Postal Services, and
     General Government Appropriations Act, required OIRA to submit
     to Congress by September 30, 1997, a report providing estimates
     of, among other things, the total annual costs and benefits of
     federal regulatory programs.  In the equivalent appropriations
     act for fiscal year 1998, Congress repeated the requirement for
     another such report by September 30, 1998. 

OMB as a whole also has statutory responsibilities that are related
to OIRA's roles in the PRA.  For example, under the Government
Performance and Results Act of 1993 (the Results Act), OMB is charged
with overseeing and guiding agencies' strategic and annual
performance planning and reporting, and it is responsible for
preparing an annual governmentwide performance plan that presents a
single cohesive picture of federal performance goals.\3 The Results
Act also calls for OMB to review agencies' performance in view of the
results the agencies are achieving with the resources they are given. 
The governmentwide performance plan that the Results Act requires OMB
to prepare should, in part, reflect the governmentwide IRM strategic
plan that the PRA requires OIRA to prepare.  Similarly, OIRA's
reviews of agencies' IRM activities under the PRA are logically
related to OMB's reviews of agencies' performance and resource use
under the Results Act. 

Also, like other federal agencies, the Results Act requires OMB to
prepare its own strategic and annual performance plans and, beginning
no later than March 31, 2000, to report to Congress annually on its
progress toward achieving the goals in its annual performance plan
for the previous fiscal year.  Agencies' performance plans are to
establish connections between their long-term strategic plans and the
day-to-day activities of managers and staff.  The annual program
performance reports are to discuss the extent to which agencies are
meeting annual performance goals and the actions needed to achieve or
modify those goals that have not been met.\4 Congress can use these
plans and reports to determine how agencies are carrying out their
statutory missions. 

The Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, which amended parts of the PRA, also
gave OIRA significant leadership responsibilities in supporting
agencies' efforts to improve their information technology management
practices.  Shortly after the passage of the act, we reported that
OMB faced a number of challenges in this area, one of which was to
develop recommendations for the president's budget that reflect an
agency's actual track record in delivering mission performance for
information technology funds expended.\5

We specifically recommended that OMB, among other things, clearly
show what improvements in mission performance have been achieved for
information technology investments. 

In addition to these statutory responsibilities, two executive orders
have made OIRA responsible for providing overall leadership of other
executive branch regulatory activities and for reviewing executive
departments' and agencies' proposed and final regulations before they
are published in the Federal Register.  Executive Order 12291, issued
in 1981 shortly after the original PRA was enacted, gave OMB the
authority to review all new regulations issued by executive
departments and agencies (other than independent regulatory agencies)
for consistency with administration policies.  In 1993, that order
was revoked and replaced by Executive Order 12866, but the new order
reaffirmed OMB's responsibilities for regulatory review and
leadership.  The order specifically stated that OIRA is the
repository of expertise concerning regulatory issues, including
matters that affect more than one agency.  In calendar years 1995
through 1997, OIRA staff members reviewed approximately 500
significant proposed and final rules each year from executive
departments and agencies pursuant to Executive Order 12866.  The
order also gives OIRA other responsibilities, including convening a
regulatory working group comprising representatives of major
regulatory agencies.\6

With both statutory and executive order responsibilities, OIRA plays
a dual role in the management of federal regulatory, paperwork, and
information policies.  It must carry out the responsibilities that
Congress has given it through legislation while, at the same time,
serving as an advisor to and implementor of presidential policy
initiatives.  OMB as a whole must similarly balance its statutory
responsibilities and its responsibilities as a staff office to the
president. 

We have issued a number of reports on the PRA since it was first
enacted in 1980, several of which have focused on OIRA's
responsibilities.  For example, in 1983 we concluded that OIRA had
made only limited progress in several IRM-related areas of the act
and that the primary reason was the decision to assign OIRA primary
responsibility for the administration's regulatory reform program
without additional resources.\7 In that report, we recommended that
the OMB Director identify in the agency's budget program and
financing schedule the resources needed to implement the PRA and
assess the feasibility of assigning existing resources to address the
act's requirements.  We also suggested that Congress consider
requiring OMB to (1) identify the resources it needed to implement
the act and report annually on those expenditures, (2) provide a
separate appropriation for the PRA's implementation, or (3) provide a
separate PRA appropriation and prohibit OIRA from performing any
duties other than those required in the act.  In 1989, we reported
that OIRA had established a formal process to review the 3,000 to
4,000 information collection requests it received each year, but
those policies were not being consistently applied.\8 We also noted
that OIRA almost always approved requests from agencies with
established review procedures, and we recommended that OIRA delegate
primary review responsibility to senior officials in those agencies. 

More recently, in both 1996 and 1997, we testified on the
implementation of selected features of the 1995 PRA.\9 In both of our
statements, we noted that the governmentwide burden-reduction goals
contemplated in the PRA were unlikely to be met and that agencies
often cited statutory constraints as the primary reason.  For
example, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officials said that they
would not be able to reduce their fiscal year 1995 paperwork totals
by more than about 2 percent by the end of fiscal year 1998 unless
major changes are made to the tax code.  Because IRS has accounted
for at least 75 percent of the government's estimated burden-hour
total in each year since 1989, we said it appeared unlikely that the
federal government as a whole would meet the 25 percent
burden-reduction goal contemplated in the act. 

As we noted in our June 1997 testimony, it is important to remember
that some federal paperwork is necessary and can serve a useful
purpose.  Information collection is one method by which agencies
carry out their missions.  For example, IRS needs to collect
information from taxpayers and their employers to know the amount of
taxes owed.  EPA and OSHA must collect information to know whether
the intent of such statutes as the Clean Air Act and the Occupational
Safety and Health Act are being achieved.  The Results Act may
require agencies to collect information that they had not previously
collected in order to demonstrate their effectiveness.  However, the
Results Act may also help agencies eliminate certain paperwork
requirements and keep the amount of paperwork as low as possible by
focusing agencies' information collection actions on only those
collections needed to accomplish their missions. 


--------------------
\3 The Results Act requires government agencies to move to
performance-based management.  It requires that agencies focus
government decisionmaking and accountability on the results of their
activities rather than on the activities themselves. 

\4 For a more complete discussion of these performance plans and
reports, see Agencies' Annual Performance Plans Under the Results
Act:  An Assessment Guide to Facilitate Congressional Decisionmaking
(GAO/GGD/AIMD-10-1.18, Feb.  1998). 

\5 Information Technology Management:  Agencies Can Improve
Performance, Reduce Costs, and Minimize Risks (GAO/AIMD-96-64, Sept. 
30, 1996). 

\6 For a discussion of OIRA's implementation of its responsibilities
under Executive Order 12866, see Regulatory Reform:  Implementation
of the Regulatory Review Executive Order (GAO/T-GGD-96-105, Sept. 
25, 1996); and More Benefits Fewer Burdens:  Creating a Regulatory
System that Works for the American People, Office of Management and
Budget, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, December 1996. 

\7 Implementing the Paperwork Reduction Act:  Some Progress, But Many
Problems Remain (GAO/GGD-83-35, Apr.  20, 1983). 

\8 Paperwork Reduction:  Mixed Effects on Agency Decision Processes
and Data Availability (GAO/PEMD-89-20, Sept.  7, 1989). 

\9 Paperwork Reduction:  Burden Reduction Goal Unlikely To Be Met
(GAO/T-GGD/RCED-96-186, June 5, 1996); and Paperwork Reduction: 
Governmentwide Goals Unlikely To Be Met (GAO/T-GGD-97-114, June 4,
1997). 


   OBJECTIVES, SCOPE, AND
   METHODOLOGY
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :3

The objectives of our review were to assess how OIRA has implemented
three of its information collection responsibilities under the PRA: 

  -- We looked at how OIRA reviews and controls paperwork, including
     (1) reviewing and approving agencies' information collection
     requests; (2) establishing and overseeing guidance for
     estimating information collection burden; (3) setting annual
     governmentwide goals for the reduction of that burden by at
     least 10 percent in fiscal years 1996 and 1997, 5 percent during
     the next 4 fiscal years, and setting annual agency goals that
     reduce paperwork to the "maximum practicable opportunity"; and
     (4) conducting pilot projects to test alternative policies and
     procedures to minimize information collection burden. 

  -- We examined OIRA's development and oversight of federal IRM
     policies, including developing and maintaining a governmentwide
     IRM plan and periodically reviewing selected agency IRM
     activities to determine their ability to improve agencies'
     performance and accomplish agencies' missions. 

  -- We looked at whether OIRA is keeping Congress and congressional
     committees fully and currently informed about major activities
     under the act. 

To determine what actions OIRA had taken in these areas, we analyzed
OIRA's reports to Congress and other documents since the act passed
in 1995; and we interviewed several OIRA officials and staff members,
including the Acting Administrator.  We then compared our
understanding of OIRA's actions in these areas with the PRA's
requirements and its legislative history.  We also obtained OIRA
staffing information from agency officials and data from the
Regulatory Information Service Center (RISC) on the number of OIRA
actions related to the information collection requests that it
reviewed since the 1995 act was passed, including information on the
types of requests submitted and the disposition of those reviews.\10
To put these data in a larger perspective, we also obtained
information on OIRA staffing and actions back to 1981, when OIRA was
created by the original PRA. 

We focused our review solely on OIRA's implementation of the specific
responsibilities delineated in the objectives.  We did not examine
the implementation of OIRA's other PRA responsibilities, including
its responsibilities in the areas of federal information technology,
records management, and statistical policies.  Neither did we examine
agencies' information collection responsibilities under the act; the
quality of OIRA's information collection request reviews; or OMB's or
OIRA's actions to develop information policies (e.g., OMB Circular
A-130).\11 Although OIRA's role as a staff office to the president
makes it unique in some respects, this study evaluates OIRA's
performance of specific statutory responsibilities for which it is
accountable to Congress like any other agency. 

We conducted our review between January and May 1998 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards.  At the
conclusion of our review, we sent a draft of this report to OIRA for
comment; its comments can be found at the end of this letter. 


--------------------
\10 RISC is part of the General Services Administration but works
closely with OMB to provide the president, Congress, and the public
with information on federal regulations.  RISC maintains a database
that includes information on all regulatory actions and all
information collection review actions by OIRA. 

\11 OMB Circular A-130 is OIRA's primary vehicle for providing the
PRA-required uniform governmentwide IRM policies. 


   OIRA'S ACTIONS HAVE NOT
   SATISFIED SEVERAL OF ITS
   RESPONSIBILITIES FOR PAPERWORK
   REVIEW AND CONTROL
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :4

The 1995 PRA assigns OIRA significant responsibilities for paperwork
review and control, including (1) the review and approval of
agencies' proposed collections of information, (2) the establishment
and oversight of guidance for estimating information collection
burden, (3) setting governmentwide and agency specific goals for the
reduction of information collection burden, and (4) conducting pilot
projects to test alternative policies and procedures to minimize
information collection burden.  In each of these areas, OIRA
officials described certain actions that they had taken or that were
ongoing that they believed were consistent with the overall intent of
the PRA's provisions.  However, we believe that OIRA's actions in
several of these areas fell short of the act's specific requirements. 


      OIRA REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF
      AGENCIES' PROPOSED
      INFORMATION COLLECTIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :4.1

As figure 1 shows, OIRA is currently organized into five branches. 
Three of those branches (Commerce and Lands, Human Resources and
Housing, and Natural Resources) are primarily responsible for the
office's paperwork and regulatory review functions.  Certain OIRA
staff within each of these branches, known as "desk officers," are
responsible for reviewing proposed information collections and
proposed rules from specific agencies.  For example, one desk officer
in OIRA's Commerce and Lands branch is primarily responsible for
reviewing the regulatory and information collection proposals
submitted by the Department of Transportation and the Federal Trade
Commission.  The two remaining OIRA branches (Information Policy and
Technology Management and Statistical Policy) are primarily
responsible for other functions assigned by the PRA.  However, some
staff in those branches review proposed information collections from
certain agencies, and other staff may be involved in paperwork and
regulatory reviews when called upon by staff in the other three
branches. 

   Figure 1:  Organization of OIRA

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

   Note:  The number of positions
   shown in each branch is the
   number of allocated full-time
   equivalents in 1997.

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

   Source:  OIRA.

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

As shown in figure 2, OIRA had 77 employees when it was established
in 1981.  However, by 1997, OIRA had decreased in size to 48
employees--a 38-percent reduction since 1981.  As previously noted,
not all of OIRA's employees are directly involved in reviewing
agencies' information collection requests.  Some employees in the
agency's Information Policy and Technology Management and Statistical
Policy branches do not review proposed information collections, and
others are in support or managerial positions.  In 1989, we reported
that OIRA employed about 35 desk officers to review agencies'
information collection submissions each year.\12 OIRA officials told
us that since the PRA was passed in 1995, between 20 and 25 desk
officers have been primarily responsible for reviewing proposed
information collections.  In 1997, OIRA had 22 desk officers
reviewing submissions--about a 35-percent reduction from the level in
1989. 

   Figure 2:  Changes in OIRA
   Staffing Over Time

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

Note:  Data on the total number of OIRA staff show the number of
full-time equivalents used in each fiscal year from 1981 to 1997. 
Data on the number of desk officers reviewing proposed collections of
information are approximate and are available for fiscal years 1989
and 1997 only. 

Source:  OIRA and GAO analysis of OIRA data. 


--------------------
\12 Paperwork Reduction:  Mixed Effects on Agency Decision Processes
and Data Availability (GAO/PEMD-89-20, Sept.  7, 1989). 


         OIRA'S REVIEW PROCESS
-------------------------------------------------------- Letter :4.1.1

Section 3504(c)(1) of the PRA states that OIRA shall "review and
approve proposed agency collections of information."\13 The act also
says that OIRA must complete its review of agencies' information
collection requests within 60 days of the date that they are
submitted to OIRA.  However, the act does not prescribe a single way
of reviewing proposed information collections.  Therefore, OIRA desk
officers have considerable statutory discretion in determining how
much time and attention to devote to different parts of the
submission and in deciding whether to approve the proposed collection
or dispose of it in some other way. 

OIRA desk officers told us that the agencies requesting OIRA
approvals for proposed collections of information initiate OIRA's
review process by submitting a copy of the proposed collection, an
OMB form summarizing how the proposed collection meets the PRA
requirements, and a written supporting statement providing more
details about the collection.  They said this information is
initially sent to OIRA's docket library, where it is logged in and
forwarded to the relevant branch and desk officer.  At the same time,
the submitting agency issues a notice in the Federal Register stating
that OIRA's approval is being sought, thereby providing the public
with an opportunity to comment on the proposed collection. 
Information collection requests awaiting OIRA's approval are also
posted on the agency's electronic bulletin board.\14 The OIRA desk
officer then reviews the information collection request and
determines whether it should be approved.  OIRA desk officers told us
that some information collection requests require greater effort and
take more time to review than others--e.g., those that are new
submissions (as opposed to renewals of existing information
collections); that impose heavy paperwork burdens; and that relate to
an administration initiative (e.g., welfare reform).  The desk
officers also said that information collection requests that receive
only a limited review at the agencies also require more intensive
review at OIRA.  For example, they said that the Department of
Agriculture has only one person responsible for reviewing proposed
information collections for the entire Department.  As a result, they
said that they have to review the Department's information collection
requests more intensively than submissions from other agencies that
have devoted more staff to information collection reviews. 

If the request is a new information collection, the OIRA desk
officers said that they first review any relevant statutes to
determine whether the proposed collection is required to fulfill the
purposes of the statutes and whether other less burdensome options
could meet those purposes.  They also said they focus on how the
proposed collection meets each of the PRA requirements summarized on
the accompanying form.  The desk officers told us that they often
review the information collections in the context of the agencies'
programs and missions, and they are beginning to consider whether the
proposed collections are linked to strategic plans that the agencies
recently submitted under the Results Act requirements. 

The desk officers also said that a key part of their review is an
attempt to validate agencies' burden-hour estimates.  Some of the
desk officers said that they do so by attempting to complete the
proposed information collections as a respondent, keeping track of
how long it takes to collect and provide the information.  However,
other desk officers said that they use other approaches to validate
agencies' burden-hour estimates. 

All of the desk officers whom we spoke to said they frequently pose
questions to the agencies about their proposed information
collections, and any memoranda or letters related to those questions
are placed in OIRA's public docket.  They also said that they review
agencies' summaries of public comments regarding the proposed
collections and any public comments sent directly to OIRA.  However,
they also said that the public frequently submits no comments to
either the agencies or OIRA. 

At the end of OIRA's review process the desk officers said that their
initial determinations are reviewed by the branch chief and, if
necessary, the Deputy Administrator.  They then notify the agency
proposing the information collection of the disposition of its
request, and the disposition is posted to OIRA's electronic bulletin
board.  According to the PRA, information collection requests may be
approved for up to 3 years, at which time they must be resubmitted to
OIRA for approval if the agency wishes to continue to collect the
information.  The desk officers said that they typically complete
their reviews of proposed information collection requests within the
60 days permitted in the PRA.  They also said that their day-to-day
work reviewing agencies' information collection requests did not
substantially change as a result of the 1995 revisions to the PRA. 

Section 3511 of the PRA requires OIRA to establish and maintain a
Government Information Locator Service (GILS) to assist agencies and
the public in locating information and to promote information sharing
and equitable access by the public.  OIRA staff with whom we spoke
said they do not use GILS to identify potentially overlapping agency
information collection requests.  They said that they were generally
aware of potential information collection overlaps, and if unsure
they would consult other desk officers or other OMB staff. 


--------------------
\13 The PRA is codified in Chapter 35 of Title 44, United States
Code.  Therefore, references to sections of the PRA in this report
are actually references to Chapter 35 of Title 44. 

\14 That bulletin board can be accessed through OMB's internet web
site at www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/omb. 


         OIRA ACTIONS AND STAFFING
-------------------------------------------------------- Letter :4.1.2

RISC's data on OIRA's activities under the PRA are based on the
number of actions the agency takes pursuant to agencies' information
collection requests.  As shown in figure 3, the total number of OIRA
actions has fluctuated during the past 17 years, but it has generally
been between 3,000 and 5,000 actions each year.  The figure also
illustrates how those OIRA actions were distributed across the
various types of information collection request submissions (e.g.,
new collections; revisions; and other types of submissions, such as
extensions and reinstatements).  The number of OIRA actions on new
information collection requests has declined since the first several
years of the act.  Within the last several years there has been an
increase in the number of actions in the "other" category,
particularly requests for extensions of original approvals and
reinstatements of elapsed information collections. 

   Figure 3:  Number of OIRA
   Paperwork Review Actions by
   Type of Submission

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

Source:  RISC. 

Figure 4 also shows the number of OIRA actions each year between 1981
and 1997, and it shows how OIRA acted upon each of the agencies'
information collection requests.  The figure illustrates that the
majority of OIRA actions in each year were approvals, followed by
corrections and other actions (e.g., disapprovals, short-term
extensions of existing approvals, and agency withdrawals of
requests).  The number of "other" dispositions increased in the 2
years following the enactment of the PRA in 1995, due largely to an
increase in the number of short-term extensions of information
collections for less than the full 3 years permitted in the act. 
However, the number of OIRA disapprovals of proposed collections of
information declined from more than 200 in 1981 and 1982 to fewer
than 15 in each year since 1993.  OIRA officials and staff told us
that this decline in the number of disapprovals reflects the fact
that agencies have learned over time what the PRA requires and also
illustrates a change in the way in which OIRA and the agencies
interact.  They said that during the Reagan and Bush administrations,
OIRA's interactions with the agencies were more contentious; as a
result, more information collection requests were disapproved,
resubmitted with changes made, and then approved.  However, OIRA
officials said the Clinton administration has emphasized working
collegially with the agencies to resolve differences, so the number
of initial disapprovals has declined.  Proposed information
collections that, in the past, had been initially disapproved are now
frequently "approved with changes." They also pointed out that the
increased number of short-term extensions reflects a measure of OIRA
concern about the proposed collection. 

   Figure 4:  Number of OIRA
   Review Actions by Type of
   Disposition

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

Source:  RISC. 

The total number of PRA actions that OIRA has taken each year has
been relatively constant since the original PRA was enacted, but (as
previously noted) the number of OIRA desk officers available to
review proposed collections of information declined during this
period.  Therefore, the PRA-related workload per OIRA desk officer
has increased since the 1980s.  One OIRA desk officer told us that
she typically has between 20 and 30 proposed information collections
on her desk at any one time.  However, she pointed out that some of
these proposals are renewals of previously approved information
collections that do not require substantial effort.  She said that
she manages the workload through an informal "triage" system, in
which proposed information collections are ranked in terms of the
degree of attention required. 


      OIRA GUIDANCE ON ESTIMATING
      PAPERWORK BURDEN
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :4.2

Section 3504(c)(5) of the PRA requires OIRA to "establish and oversee
standards and guidelines by which agencies are to estimate the burden
to comply with a proposed collection of information." In August 1995,
OIRA issued final regulations that, among other things, reflect the
changes that Congress made in the act regarding how the terms
"collection of information" and "burden" are defined.  For example,
the preamble to the regulation notes that the 1995 act redefined
burden to include the total time, effort, or financial resources
expended to generate, maintain, retain, disclose, or provide
information to a federal agency.  However, the preamble and the
regulation contain only general instructions to agencies on how they
should estimate the burden associated with their information
collections. 

OIRA is in the process of developing more detailed guidance for
agencies and OIRA desk officers to use in implementing the PRA. 
Although the guidance was still in draft when we developed this
report, OIRA officials said that it has been widely used by both
agencies and OIRA staff since early 1997.  The guidance contains a
section on burden that specifically references the OIRA
responsibilities in section 3504(c)(5) of the act and describes the
various types of activities that the act says constitute burden. 
That section of the guidance also references an appendix with
suggested worksheets that are designed to help an agency calculate
burden-hours.  The appendix describes actions agencies could take to
estimate (1) burden-hours per respondent, (2) aggregate burden-hours,
(3) capital and other nonlabor costs per respondent, and (4)
aggregate capital and other non labor costs.  Although the guidance
indicates that agencies should estimate the time it takes for
respondents to undertake various elements of paperwork activity
(e.g., reviewing instructions, searching data sources, and completing
and reviewing the collection of information to arrive at the number
of burden-hours per respondent), it does not clearly indicate how
agencies are to arrive at these estimates or provide examples of how
different agencies have estimated the burden associated with
particular information collections. 

OIRA officials and staff said that there are differences both between
and within departments and agencies in how they estimate the burden
associated with their information collections.  For example, they
said that IRS estimates the burden associated with its information
collections partly on the basis of the number of lines on the forms
to be completed, but other agencies calculate burden in ways
unrelated to the number of lines on each form.  OIRA officials said
they believe it is less important that agencies measure their
information collections in the same way than that the measurements
are consistent over time within particular agencies.  Consistency
over time, they said, permits OIRA to determine whether the burden
associated with specific agencies' information collections is
increasing or decreasing. 

Measuring the number of burden-hours associated with individual
information collections or for an agency as a whole is extremely
difficult, as illustrated by agencies' reestimates of their
burden-hour totals and the magnitude of those adjustments.  For
example, in 1989, IRS did a comprehensive reassessment of all of its
existing data collections, resulting in a 3.4 billion hour increase
in its burden-hour estimate.\15 However, this change did not reflect
any alteration in the actual paperwork burden felt by the public
because only the measurement system used to produce this estimate was
altered.  A recent analysis of IRS's current burden-hour estimate
methodology concluded that the agency may be overstating businesses'
paperwork burden by nearly 400 percent. 

Agencies should review and, if necessary, revise their methods for
estimating burden-hours.  However, these large fluctuations in
burden-hour estimates by IRS, an agency that constitutes 75 percent
of the governmentwide total, illustrate a continuing need for clear
guidance on how paperwork burden can be measured.  Although a single
methodology may not be feasible for all agencies or for all
information collections, the PRA clearly contemplated that OIRA would
play a critical role in the development of governmentwide guidance
and the achievement of reliable and valid measurements of paperwork
burden.  Although OIRA has taken some steps in this area, it has not
fully played that role. 


--------------------
\15 Paperwork Reduction:  Reported Burden Hour Increases Reflect New
Estimates, Not Actual Changes (GAO/PEMD-94-3, Dec.  6, 1993). 


      ESTABLISHMENT OF
      GOVERNMENTWIDE AND
      AGENCY-SPECIFIC PAPERWORK
      REDUCTION GOALS
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :4.3

One of the PRA's key features is the requirement in section 3505(a)
of the act that OIRA, in consultation with the agency heads, set
annual governmentwide goals for the reduction of information
collection burdens by at least 10 percent in fiscal years 1996 and
1997 and by at least 5 percent in the succeeding 4 fiscal years.  The
act also requires OIRA to establish annual agency goals to (1) reduce
information collection burdens imposed on the public that "represent
the maximum practicable opportunity in each agency" and that are
consistent with improving agencies' review processes; and (2) improve
IRM in ways that increase the productivity, efficiency, and
effectiveness of federal programs. 

In our June 1996 testimony on the implementation of the PRA, we said
that OIRA had not set either governmentwide or agency-specific
burden-reduction goals as required by the act.  OIRA officials told
us at the time that they planned to set the fiscal year 1996
governmentwide burden-reduction goal when they published their
information collection budget (ICB) later that year, and they said
that the goal would be the 10-percent reduction for fiscal year 1996
required in the act.\16 They also said that the agency goals would
reflect the end of fiscal year 1996 burden-hour estimates that the
agencies provided in their ICB submissions--essentially, what the
agencies expected their burden-hour totals would be by the end of the
fiscal year--unless changed as a result of OIRA review.  We noted in
our testimony that the weighted average of the agencies'
burden-reduction projections for fiscal year 1996 was about 1 percent
governmentwide. 

The PRA did not explicitly require that the governmentwide
burden-reduction goal should be the sum of the agency-specific goals,
only that the governmentwide goal be at least the amounts specified
in the act and that agency goals "represent the maximum practicable
opportunity in each agency." Therefore, OIRA officials told us during
our 1996 review that if the OIRA Administrator determines that
federal agencies are capable of collectively reducing their paperwork
burden by an average of only 1 percent in a fiscal year, the
Administrator is authorized to set agencies' goals that will not add
up to the governmentwide goal.  However, we noted in our June 1996
testimony that it is logical to assume that agency-specific goals
would be the means by which the governmentwide goals would be
achieved.  Furthermore, the PRA's legislative history indicates that
Congress contemplated a connection between the governmentwide and the
agency-specific goals.  For example, the act's conference report
states that

     "individual agency goals negotiated with OIRA may differ
     depending on the agency's potential to reduce the paperwork
     burden such agency imposes on the public.  Goals negotiated with
     some agencies may substantially exceed the Government-wide goal,
     while those negotiated with other agencies may be substantially
     less."

In August 1996, OIRA formally set agency-specific burden-reduction
goals for fiscal year 1996 by publishing the ICB in its Information
Resources Management Plan of the Federal Government.  The agencies
estimated that in the aggregate, their burden-hour totals at the end
of fiscal year 1996 (less than 2 months later) would be less than 1
percent below their totals at the end of fiscal year 1995.  However,
in a subsequent ICB the agencies estimated that the fiscal year 1996
reductions were about 2.6 percent--still far short of the 10 percent
governmentwide burden-reduction goal contemplated in the act for that
year.  OIRA officials told us at the time that OIRA had satisfied the
PRA's requirement that it set governmentwide burden-reduction goals
by repeating the act's requirements in the ICB. 

In January 1997, OMB issued Bulletin 97-03, which instructed
executive departments and agencies to prepare and implement ICBs and
information streamlining plans that would include "goals and
timetables to achieve, by the end of [fiscal year] 1998, a cumulative
burden reduction of 25 percent from their [fiscal year] 1995 year-end
level, consistent with the governmentwide burden-reduction goals in
the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995." OIRA officials said that they
decided to set a 3-year goal instead of the year-to-year goals
required in the act because many approved collections are approved
for 3 years, and it would take that long for associated paperwork
reductions to be implemented.  Although the January 1997 bulletin
indicated that each agency's burden-reduction goal should be
consistent with the 25 percent governmentwide goal envisioned in the
PRA by the end of fiscal year 1998, OIRA officials again told us
during this review that the act does not require that the agencies'
goals total to 25 percent by that date. 

In our June 1997 testimony, we noted that OIRA had not published the
ICB for fiscal year 1997 and, therefore, had not formally established
agencies' burden-reduction goals for that year.  We also noted that
all three of the regulatory agencies that we examined in that review
(EPA, OSHA, and IRS) said that the statutory framework underlying
their regulations and/or continued actions by Congress requiring the
agencies to produce regulations were major impediments to eliminating
paperwork burden.  For example, IRS said that it could not reach a 25
percent burden-reduction goal of eliminating more than 1 billion
burden-hours of paperwork under its current statutory framework and
still carry out its mission.  Of the three agencies, only OSHA
indicated that it would achieve the 25 percent burden-reduction goal
by the end of fiscal year 1998. 

In September 1997, OIRA set agency-specific burden-reduction goals
for fiscal year 1997 by publishing the ICB in its Reports to Congress
Under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.  The agencies' aggregate
burden-hour estimate for the end of fiscal year 1997 (less than 1
month later) was less than 2 percent below the total for fiscal year
1996.  In combination with the reductions in the previous fiscal
year, the agencies estimated that their total reductions by the end
of fiscal year 1997 from the fiscal year 1995 baseline would be about
4.4 percent.  Therefore, in order to meet the 25-percent reduction by
the end of fiscal year 1998 that was contemplated in the PRA and
indicated in OMB's January 1997 bulletin, federal agencies would have
to reduce their paperwork burden by more than 20 percent during
fiscal year 1998.  This scenario is unlikely because, as previously
noted, the agency that accounts for 75 percent of the governmentwide
total (IRS) has indicated that it can reduce its burden by only about
2 percent by the end of fiscal year 1998.\17 OIRA officials told us
during this review that the ICB establishing burden-reduction goals
for fiscal year 1998 will not be published until later this year. 


--------------------
\16 Since 1981, OIRA has developed an annual ICB as a part of its
effort to meet the PRA requirements to review information collections
and the burden they impose.  The ICBs report on governmentwide and
agencies' total information collection burden for the current fiscal
year and on agencies' estimates of their total burden in the coming
fiscal year.  The ICBs also report selected burden reduction
accomplishments in the agencies. 

\17 However, OIRA officials also noted that agencies outside of the
Department of the Treasury cumulatively reduced their paperwork
burden estimates by 12.7 percent during fiscal year 1996, and
estimated that the burden hour total would decrease by another 4.7
percent by the end of fiscal year 1997. 


      OIRA PILOT PROJECTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :4.4

Section 3505(a)(2) of the PRA requires OIRA to conduct pilot projects
with selected agencies and nonfederal entities on a voluntary basis
to test alternative policies, practices, regulations, and procedures
to fulfill the purposes of the act, particularly with regard to
minimizing the federal information collection burden.  OIRA officials
said that they have not formally established any pilot projects
specifically for this purpose.  However, they consider the three
pilot projects used to satisfy UMRA's pilot project requirement to
also satisfy the PRA's pilot requirement.  Section 207 of UMRA
requires OMB to establish pilot projects in at least two agencies to
test innovative, flexible regulatory approaches that reduce reporting
and compliance burdens on small governments.  However, as we noted in
our February 1998 UMRA report, the pilots that OIRA identified as
satisfying the UMRA requirements were not started because of UMRA.\18
In fact, at least two of the pilots appear to have been initiated as
a result of recommendations from the National Performance Review in
September 1993--before either UMRA or the PRA were enacted. 
Furthermore, the UMRA pilots are confined to only one segment of the
nonfederal population (small governments) that are required to
provide information to or for federal agencies. 

OIRA officials noted that other projects were ongoing in certain
agencies that could accomplish the underlying purpose of the PRA
pilots, including (1) the Simplified Tax and Wage Reporting System, a
joint project of IRS and the Department of Labor that would permit
companies to electronically file all federal and state tax
information at once; and (2) the International Trade Data System, an
interagency effort led by the Department of the Treasury to design
and build shared systems for gathering, distributing, and storing
foreign trade data.  Past funding for these two projects has
supported research and small prototypes.  The President's budget for
fiscal year 1999 asks for funds to begin full-scale development of
these systems. 


--------------------
\18 Unfunded Mandates:  Reform Act Has Had Little Effect on Agencies'
Rulemaking Actions (GAO/GGD-98-30, Feb.  4, 1998). 


   OIRA'S ACTIONS DO NOT SATISFY
   ALL OF ITS RESPONSIBILITIES TO
   OVERSEE IRM ACTIVITIES
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :5

The 1995 PRA defined information resources as "information and
related resources, such as personnel, equipment, funds, and
information technology." The act also defined information resources
management as "the process of managing information resources to
accomplish agency missions and to improve agency performance,
including through the reduction of information collection burden on
the public." These new definitions emphasize the link between IRM and
program outcomes and make agencies' use of information resources
consistent with the goals of the then recently enacted Results Act. 
The 1995 PRA refocused OIRA's role on integrating information
resources management with program management and concentrating on
program outcomes as the standard for overseeing the efficiency and
effectiveness of IRM.  The 1995 act also stressed the linkage between
IRM and the reduction of paperwork burden on the public. 

Using the 1995 PRA's definition of IRM and its emphasis on the use of
information resources to achieve and measure progress toward
outcomes, in this portion of our review we focused on two of OIRA's
specific IRM-related PRA responsibilities:  (1) its responsibility to
develop and maintain a governmentwide IRM strategic plan and (2) its
responsibility to periodically review selected agency IRM activities
to ascertain the efficiency and effectiveness of such activities to
improve agency performance and the accomplishment of agency missions. 
We concluded that although OIRA has undertaken a number of
IRM-related activities, the agency has not fully satisfied its PRA
responsibilities. 


      OIRA'S RESPONSIBILITY TO
      DEVELOP AND MAINTAIN A
      GOVERNMENTWIDE IRM STRATEGIC
      PLAN
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :5.1

Section 3505(a)(3) of the PRA requires OMB, in consultation with
other agencies, to "develop and maintain a Governmentwide strategic
plan for information resources management." The act states that the
plan should include (1) a description of the objectives and means by
which the federal government shall apply information resources to
improve agency and program performance; (2) plans for reducing
information burdens on the public, enhancing public access to and
dissemination of information, and meeting the information technology
needs of the federal government; and (3) a description of agencies'
progress in applying IRM to improve their performance and the
accomplishment of their missions. 

OIRA officials told us that their August 1996 report Information
Resources Management Plan of the Federal Government satisfied the
requirement for an IRM strategic plan for fiscal year 1996--the first
year after the 1995 PRA was enacted.  The OIRA report was similar in
content to other documents that OIRA had published for several years
before the enactment of the PRA and contained four principal parts: 
(1) a discussion of federal obligations for information technology
resources (i.e., computer and telecommunications hardware, software,
and services); (2) the ICB for fiscal year 1995; (3) a brief
discussion of federal information dissemination activities; and (4) a
brief discussion of agencies' compliance with the information policy
provisions of OMB Circular Number A-130.  OIRA officials also told us
that their September 1997 publication Reports to Congress Under the
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 satisfied the PRA's requirement for
an IRM strategic plan for fiscal year 1997.  Similar in format to
OIRA's August 1996 report, the September 1997 report contained
sections on federal information technology obligations, the ICB for
fiscal year 1996, federal information dissemination activities, and
agencies' compliance with OMB Circular A-130. 

OIRA officials also told us that the CIO Council's January 1998
Strategic Plan met the PRA requirement that it develop a
governmentwide IRM strategic plan.  The CIO Council that developed
the report was chaired by the OMB Acting Deputy Director for
Management, and the foreword to the strategic plan notes the
requirement in section 3505(c)(3) of the act that OIRA develop a
governmentwide IRM strategic plan.  The CIO Council's strategic plan
contained sections on (1) defining an interoperable federal
information architecture, (2) ensuring security practices that
protect government services, (3) leading the federal year 2000
conversion effort, (4) establishing sound capital planning and
investment practices, (5) improving the information technology skills
of the federal workforce, and (6) building relationships and outreach
programs.  The plan states that its primary purpose is "to articulate
the Council's vision and strategic priorities for managing Federal
[information technology] resources over the long-term and to define
its near-term commitments in beginning implementation."

Although a governmentwide IRM strategic plan can be structured in
many ways (e.g., presenting highlights from different agencies or
focusing on crosscutting issues), none of the reports that OIRA cited
appear to have met all of the PRA requirements for such a plan.  For
example, although these reports contained a few examples of how
agencies are using information technology, none of the reports
clearly discussed the objectives and means by which the federal
government would use all types of information resources to improve
agency and program performance.  Although both of the OIRA reports
contained examples of how agencies had reduced information collection
requirements, neither report described agencies' progress in applying
IRM to improve their performance or mission accomplishment.  As we
noted in our testimony last October, we believe that the strategic
goals agreed to by the CIO Council (and later included in its
strategic plan) are the right set of issues to pursue regarding
information technology management.\19

However, we also noted that the CIO Council lacked a "visible
yardstick" to provide an incentive for progress in meeting
information management goals and demonstrating positive impact on the
agencies' bottom line performance.  Also, the CIO Council's strategic
plan focused primarily on information technology issues, which the
PRA indicates is only one part of information resources or IRM. 

In June 1997, we reported on five regulatory agencies' efforts to
focus on results and the factors that they believed assisted or
impeded these efforts.\20 Although officials from all five agencies
said that they found it difficult to establish outcome-oriented
program performance measures because of problems they experienced in
collecting necessary data, several of the agencies had developed
measures that we considered at least somewhat results oriented.  For
example, the Federal Aviation Administration measured progress toward
its strategic goal of "system safety" by collecting such information
as the number of fatalities per million passenger miles and the
number of accidents and runway incursions that occurred each year. 
IRS assessed accomplishment of its strategic objective of improving
customer service by collecting information on the rate at which
taxpayer issues were resolved during the first contact with IRS. 
Also, OSHA has collected information on the number of accidents,
injuries, and deaths within 80,000 workplaces in order to better
target its enforcement activities.\21 These kinds of information and
performance measures are examples of how information resources can be
used to direct, assess, and, ultimately, improve agencies'
performance.  A governmentwide IRM strategic plan, however it is
constructed, can highlight these kinds of efforts and encourage
agencies to make greater use of information resources to accomplish
their missions. 


--------------------
\19 Chief Information Officers:  Ensuring Strong Leadership and an
Effective Council (GAO/T-AIMD-98-22, Oct.  27, 1997). 

\20 Managing for Results:  Regulatory Agencies Identified Significant
Barriers to Focusing on Results (GAO/GGD-97-83, June 24, 1997). 

\21 However, in a recent report, Occupational Safety and Health: 
Efforts to Obtain Establishment-Specific Data on Injuries and
Illnesses (GAO/HEHS-98-122, May 22, 1998), we noted that OSHA has
made only limited use of the data it collected in its 1996 and 1997
surveys and has not fully implemented any of the intended purposes of
the information collections. 


      OIRA'S RESPONSIBILITY TO
      REVIEW SELECTED AGENCY IRM
      ACTIVITIES
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :5.2

Section 3513(a) of the PRA requires OIRA, in consultation with other
agencies, to "periodically review selected agency information
resources management activities to ascertain the efficiency and
effectiveness of such activities to improve agency performance and
the accomplishment of agency missions." Agencies' general IRM
responsibilities are delineated in section 3506(b) of the act, which
requires them to, among other things, (1) develop a strategic IRM
plan that describes how IRM activities help accomplish agency
missions; and (2) develop and maintain an ongoing process to
"establish goals for improving IRM's contribution to program
productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness, methods for measuring
progress towards those goals, and clear roles and responsibilities
for achieving those goals."

OIRA officials and desk officers identified a number of activities
that they believe constitute a review of agencies' IRM activities. 
The desk officers said that they conduct those reviews as part of
their analyses of agencies' individual information collection
requests and proposed regulations.  Working with specific agencies
over time, the desk officers said they develop an understanding of
the agencies' IRM activities that becomes part of the policy context
in which they assess those requests and rules. 

OIRA officials also told us that their reviews of agencies'
activities under the Clinger-Cohen Act also satisfy the PRA
requirement that OIRA review agencies' IRM actions.  They said that
one of the most important activities required by Clinger-Cohen is the
selection of agencies' CIOs, and OIRA participates in that process to
try and ensure that the CIOs have access to agency heads, are
qualified for the positions, and have written job descriptions that
are consistent with the statutory requirements.  Finally, OIRA
officials said that they review agencies' IRM activities as part of
the budget development and execution process within OMB.  They noted
that the Clinger-Cohen Act requires OIRA to report annually on the
"net program performance benefits achieved as a result of major
capital investments made by executive agencies in information systems
and how the benefits relate to the accomplishment of the goals of the
executive agencies." They said that the President's budget for fiscal
year 1999 satisfies this reporting requirement by linking agencies'
capital investments to agencies' goals and activities under the
Results Act. 

Overall, OIRA officials said that they view the agencies' IRM
responsibilities as including all of the agency responsibilities in
section 3506 of the act, including not only the general IRM
requirements in section 3506(b) but also the requirements in the
other sections relating to collections of information and control of
paperwork, information dissemination, statistical policy and
coordination, records management, and privacy and security.  They
also said that the PRA requirement that OIRA review agencies' IRM
activities is part of the "daily life" of the agency and OMB. 
However, they said that they do not view this section of the act as
requiring OIRA or OMB to undertake any special action or review. 

Although OIRA officials said that they view agencies' IRM
responsibilities as including all of the requirements in section 3506
of the PRA, section 3506(b) specifically delineates what agencies
must do "[w]ith respect to general information resources management."
Therefore, OIRA should, at a minimum, review agencies' implementation
of their responsibilities under section 3506(b) of the PRA.  Also,
although OIRA officials said that they review agencies' IRM
activities through a variety of vehicles, it is not clear how all of
the vehicles that they mentioned relate to the two agency IRM
requirements that we examined in section 3506(b).  For example,
OIRA's participation in the selection of agencies' CIOs and its
review of agencies' information system investments in the budget
process do not constitute a review of agencies' IRM strategic plans
or the agencies' goals for improving IRM's contribution to program
productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness.  Also, OIRA does not
require agencies' individual information collection requests to
present the agencies' IRM strategic plans or IRM goals.  Therefore,
unless the agencies include that information on their own in the
supplementary information, OIRA's reviews of agencies' information
collection requests cannot satisfy its responsibilities to review
agencies' IRM activities.  However, the desk officers indicated that
they are beginning to consider whether the proposed collections are
linked to agencies' strategic plans under the Results Act.  If so,
these individual information collection requests can be viewed in the
larger context of program effectiveness and agency mission
accomplishment that the PRA envisioned. 

As noted previously, OMB's reviews of agencies' information
technology investments during the budget process can link one element
of agencies' IRM activities to the agencies' missions and
performance.  However, OMB does not explicitly require agencies to
present in their budget submissions an IRM strategic plan or to
establish agencywide goals for improving IRM's contribution to
program productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness.\22 Therefore, it
is not clear how OMB's reviews of agencies' budget submissions
constitute a review of what the PRA specifically identifies as
agencies' IRM responsibilities. 


--------------------
\22 OMB's July 1997 Capital Programming Guide, developed jointly with
GAO, integrates statutory and executive branch management
requirements to ensure that investments in capital assets, including
information systems, contribute to the achievement of agencies'
information systems investments and the agencies' strategic plans
required by the Results Act.  However, it does not explicitly mention
the role of the agencies' strategic IRM plans in this process. 


   OIRA HAS NOT KEPT CONGRESS
   FULLY AND CURRENTLY INFORMED OF
   CERTAIN MAJOR PRA ACTIVITIES
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :6

Section 3514(a) of the PRA states that OIRA must "keep Congress and
congressional committees fully and currently informed of the major
activities under [the act]," and it requires OIRA to "submit a report
on such activities to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of
the House of Representatives annually and at such other times as
[OIRA] determines necessary." The PRA says that any such report must
contain a description of the extent to which agencies have reduced
information collection burdens on the public and should specifically
include (1) a summary of accomplishments and planned initiatives; (2)
a list of all violations of the act's requirements; (3) a list of any
increases in the collection of information burden (including the
authority for each such collection); and (4) a list of agencies that
did not reduce information collection burdens in accordance with the
goals established in section 3505(a)(1), a list of the programs and
statutory responsibilities of those agencies that precluded that
reduction, and recommendations to assist those agencies to reduce
their information collection burdens.  The PRA also specifies that
OIRA's annual report must contain a description of the extent to
which agencies have improved program performance and mission
accomplishment through IRM. 

OIRA officials told us that their August 1996 Information Resources
Management Plan of the Federal Government and their September 1997
Reports to Congress Under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 have
served as the primary vehicles by which they have satisfied the PRA's
reporting requirement.  As noted previously, the reports contained
information on federal information technology obligations, the ICBs,
federal information dissemination activities, and agencies'
compliance with OMB Circular A-130.  They said that the ICBs included
most of the information required under section 3514(a) of the PRA. 
For example, they noted that the ICB for fiscal year 1997 included
the burden reduction goals in the PRA, the overall and
agency-specific burden reductions between fiscal years 1995 and 1996,
and the estimated reductions by the end of fiscal year 1997.  OIRA
officials also said that they have fulfilled the reporting
requirement in other documents, including the CIO Council's Strategic
Plan and various statistical reports published by OIRA's Statistical
Policy Branch.  Finally, they noted that they have testified at
numerous hearings on the PRA and have responded to individual
requests for information about PRA implementation from Members and
committees of Congress. 

In our June 1996 testimony on the implementation of the PRA, we said
that we did not believe that OIRA had kept Congress fully and
currently informed about why it had not established any of the
burden-reduction goals required in section 3505 of the act.  We also
noted that OIRA had not informed Congress that the 10 percent
governmentwide burden-reduction goal envisioned in the act for fiscal
year 1996 would not be met.  We believed that both of these issues
were "major activities" under the act and that OIRA should have
informed Congress of those activities. 

As previously noted, OIRA established agency-specific
burden-reduction goals through the publication of its fiscal year
1996 and fiscal year 1997 ICBs in its August 1996 and September 1997
reports to Congress.  Although the ICBs in these reports presented
the changes in burden-hour estimates from year to year, neither of
the reports clearly stated that the governmentwide burden-reduction
goals contemplated in the act were unlikely to be met.  Neither did
those reports indicate that OIRA believes that the sum of the
individual reduction goals that is the maximum practicable for each
agency need not equal the governmentwide goal.  We believe these are
also major activities under the PRA about which OIRA should have kept
Congress and congressional committees fully and currently informed. 

OIRA's August 1996 and September 1997 reports contained some of the
specific elements that the PRA requires in OIRA's annual reports
(e.g., burden-reduction accomplishments and initiatives and
violations of the act).  Similarly, the other reports and actions
that OIRA mentioned contained discussions of other PRA-related
activities.  However, other elements that the PRA requires in those
reports were missing.  For example, the reports did not list the
authority for each information collection whose burden increased. 
Also, for agencies that did not meet their burden-reduction goals,
the reports did not list the programs and statutory responsibilities
that prevented the agencies from achieving the goals or
recommendations to assist those agencies to reduce burden. 

None of the reports that OIRA officials mentioned contained
information on how agencies had improved program performance and the
accomplishment of agency missions through IRM--clearly a major focus
of the 1995 PRA.  Neither did those reports discuss what OIRA had
done to carry out all of its major activities required by the act. 
For example, OIRA has not clearly and succinctly described its
reviews of agencies' IRM activities, which may in part be due to the
fact that OIRA does not view this requirement as necessitating any
type of separate activity. 

In February 1998, OMB submitted its performance plan for fiscal year
1999 to Congress pursuant to the Results Act.  In that plan, OMB said
that one of its performance goals was to "[w]ork with agencies to
reduce paperwork burdens." OMB noted the PRA requirement that OIRA
set a governmentwide goal of reducing information collection burdens
by at least 5 percent in fiscal year 1999 and said it works with
agencies to set goals to reduce burdens to the "maximum extent
practicable." OMB also noted that it submits an annual report to
Congress describing these goals and agency progress toward meeting
them.  However, OMB did not indicate in the performance plan that the
governmentwide goal was unlikely to be met or that it believes that
the sum of the agency-specific goals does not have to equal the
governmentwide goal.  Also, OMB's performance plan does not identify
the specific strategies and resources that it will use to achieve
this performance goal, nor does it provide performance measures that
would allow Congress and the public to determine how well OMB is
achieving these goals. 


   CONCLUSIONS
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :7

This report examines some, but not all, of OIRA's specific
responsibilities under the 1995 PRA.  Although OIRA officials noted a
variety of actions that the agency had taken regarding those
responsibilities, we do not believe that OIRA has fully satisfied the
act's requirements in any of the three areas we examined:  (1)
reviewing and controlling paperwork, (2) developing and overseeing
federal IRM policies, and (3) keeping Congress and congressional
committees fully and currently informed about major activities under
the act. 

For example, in the area of paperwork review and control, the PRA
requires OIRA to set both governmentwide and agency-specific
burden-reduction goals.  OMB's January 1997 bulletin said that
agencies should prepare and implement ICBs and streamlining plans
that would achieve a 25-percent reduction by the end of fiscal year
1998.  However, the agencies' goals are actually established in the
ICBs.  OIRA's practice of establishing agency-specific
burden-reduction goals in those ICBs at the level that it and the
agencies expect the agencies' paperwork burden will be by the end of
the fiscal year will not motivate the agencies to reduce their
information collection requirements.  A goal should represent a
desired condition, not simply the condition that the participating
parties expect will occur.  Also, OIRA's pattern in the past 2 years
of publishing agency goals for the fiscal year within the last 2
months of the fiscal year makes the goals of limited value in the
management of the agencies' paperwork reduction efforts.  This year,
OIRA will again not publish agency-specific goals until late in the
fiscal year.  Finally, although OMB's January 1997 bulletin said that
each agency's burden-reduction goal should be consistent with the
governmentwide, 25 percent burden-reduction goal envisioned in the
PRA, OIRA officials told us during this review that the agency and
governmentwide goals are not necessarily linked.  This position is
illogical and appears inconsistent with the PRA's legislative
history. 

OIRA also has not fully satisfied either of the IRM-related
responsibilities that we examined--developing a governmentwide IRM
plan and periodically reviewing selected agency IRM activities. 
Although OIRA's August 1996 and September 1997 reports on the PRA and
the CIO Council's strategic plan contain some of the elements that
the PRA requires in an IRM strategic plan, none of these documents
describe, in a clear and comprehensive manner, (1) the objectives and
means by which the federal government should use information
resources to improve agency and program performance or (2) agencies'
progress in applying IRM to improve their performance--two of the
three basic elements that the act says an IRM strategic plan should
have.  Also, although OIRA desk officers and officials mentioned a
number of actions that they had taken to review agencies' IRM
activities, none of those actions appeared to focus on the two
specific IRM responsibilities that the PRA explicitly assigns to the
agencies--the development of an IRM strategic plan and the
development of a process to establish goals for improving IRM's
contribution to productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness. 

Finally, as we have previously testified, OIRA has not kept Congress
and congressional committees fully and currently informed about
certain major activities under the PRA.  The establishment of
burden-reduction goals was one of the key elements in the 1995 PRA,
and OIRA has included information in its annual reports to Congress
about the status of agencies' burden-reduction efforts.  However,
OIRA has never directly informed Congress in its reports or elsewhere
that the goals envisioned in the PRA are unlikely to be met, or that
the agencies believe that the goals cannot be met given current
statutory requirements.  Neither has OIRA informed Congress that it
believes that the total of the agency-specific goals do not have to
equal the governmentwide goals.  We believe that these are major
activities under the act about which OIRA should have kept Congress
and congressional committees fully and currently informed.  Had OIRA
informed Congress that the goals in the PRA were unlikely to be met
given agencies' statutory obligations, Congress could have used that
information to determine whether it wanted to change the goals or to
change the statutory requirements to allow the agencies to meet the
PRA's goals.  Also, OIRA has not informed Congress that it has not
developed an IRM strategic plan, or even that it believes its August
1996 and September 1997 reports to Congress and the CIO Council's
report represent a strategic plan.  Finally, OIRA's reports to
Congress have not included several of the specific elements that the
PRA requires OIRA to include in those reports. 

OIRA's lack of action in some of these areas may be a function of its
resource and staffing limitations.  The office has less than two
dozen staff who review between 3,000 and 5,000 PRA information
collection requests each year, analyze the substance of about 500
significant rules each year under Executive Order 12866, and perform
other duties pursuant to other statutes and executive orders.  As a
result, it may be difficult for OIRA officials and staff to carry out
all of the specific tasks that the PRA requires it to take or to
adopt a strategic view of information collection and information
management.  However, as we said in our 1983 report on the PRA, if
resource limitations are the problem, OMB officials need to notify
Congress of those limits in its budget submission.  It has not done
so. 

Through its oversight role, Congress can help ensure that OIRA
carries out its statutory obligations under the PRA and plays the
leadership role that the drafters of the PRA believed would be
critical to the act's success.  Congress can exercise that oversight
in any number of ways, including congressional hearings that focus
directly on how well OIRA has carried out its responsibilities under
the act.  Another alternative is through the appointment and
confirmation process in which the Senate has an opportunity to
explore what prospective OMB and OIRA nominees plan to do to ensure
stronger leadership and better compliance with the PRA's
requirements. 

Congress could also use its review of the annual performance plans
and reports that OMB is required to submit under the Results Act as a
means of overseeing how OIRA is carrying out its PRA
responsibilities.  However, for Congress to use OMB's plans and
reports in this manner, the documents must directly address OIRA's
PRA responsibilities.  OMB's performance plan would have to identify
goals that relate to OIRA's PRA responsibilities, identify the
specific strategies and resources that it will use to achieve these
performance goals, and develop measures that would inform Congress
and the public about how well OMB is achieving these goals.  Those
performance goals would be specifically linked to program activities
in OMB's budget requests.  If OIRA's staffing and resource
limitations prevent it from accomplishing its responsibilities, or if
OMB believes that OIRA's PRA responsibilities need modification, OMB
can highlight those limitations and propose any statutory changes
that it believes are necessary in its performance plan and its annual
report. 


   RECOMMENDATION
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :8

The Director of OMB should ensure that its annual performance plans
and annual program reports to Congress pursuant to the Results Act
identify specific strategies, resources, and performance measures
that it will use to address OIRA's specific PRA responsibilities.  If
the Director believes that OMB needs additional resources to carry
out its PRA-related responsibilities, or that certain
responsibilities or goals should be eliminated or revised, the
Director should highlight those limitations and any proposed changes
in the agency's plans and reports. 


   MATTER FOR CONGRESSIONAL
   CONSIDERATION
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :9

To improve the implementation of the PRA, Congress may want to use
its oversight authority to help ensure that OIRA executes its
responsibilities under the act.  Specifically, Congress may want to
focus part of its review of OMB's annual performance plans and
reports pursuant to the Results Act on OIRA's statutory PRA
obligations. 


   AGENCY COMMENTS
----------------------------------------------------------- Letter :10

We provided a draft of this report to OMB for review and comment.  On
June 11, 1998, we met with the Acting Administrator of OIRA to
discuss the report; and on June 17, 1998, he provided a written
summary of OMB's comments.  In that summary, the Acting Administrator
said that because the report discusses only a few of OIRA's
responsibilities under the PRA, it does not accurately or fully
portray the complexity and scope of these responsibilities.  He also
said that because the report does not include other responsibilities
on which OIRA has taken action under the PRA, it does not accurately
represent the extent to which OIRA has fulfilled most of these
responsibilities.  As a result, he said the report does not provide a
complete, balanced, or accurate picture of how OIRA is carrying out
its PRA responsibilities. 

For example, the Acting Administrator said the report suggests that
OIRA has never directly informed Congress that the burden-reduction
goals stated in the PRA are unlikely to be met, or that the agencies
believe that the goals cannot be met given current statutory
requirements.  However, he noted that OMB has, for each year since
the 1980 PRA, published an Information Collection Budget that sets
forth the previous year's baseline, the current year's
accomplishment, and the future year's targeted goal for paperwork
burdens.  Moreover, he said OIRA has, for the past 3 years, informed
Congress through formal and informal contacts that the general
paperwork burden-reduction goals are unlikely to be met and that they
could not be met given current statutory requirements. 

In addition, the Acting Administrator said the report suggests that
agencies will not be motivated to meet the statutory governmentwide
10 and 5 percent annual burden-reduction goals because OIRA sets the
agency-specific burden-reduction goals in the annual Information
Collection Budget at the level that OMB and the agencies' expect the
agencies' paperwork burden to be by the end of the upcoming fiscal
year.  He said that this conclusion does not take into account the
fact that the PRA itself establishes the procedure under which OMB
and the agencies establish their annual paperwork burden-reduction
goals.  Specifically, he said, the PRA directs OMB, in consultation
with each agency, to set an annual agency goal to reduce information
collection burdens that "represent[s] the maximum practicable
opportunity in each agency" that is "consistent with improving agency
management of the process for review of collections of information"
established by the agency's Chief Information Officer.  He said this
means that each year each agency is to seek to attain the "maximum
practicable" paperwork burden reduction consistent with the agency's
statutory and program missions and the information management
strategy of the Chief Information Officer.  The aggregate of each
agency's annual goals that is the "maximum practicable" in light of
each agency's programmatic and statutory responsibilities may not,
and as a general matter has not, totaled to the governmentwide goal. 

The Acting Administrator also said this conclusion does not take into
account the fact that agency information collections are largely
driven by the need to carry out program and statutory missions.  If
an information collection that an agency submits for OMB review meets
the practical utility, burden, and other PRA criteria for approval,
he said that OMB does not have authority to disapprove it just
because the approval would cause the agency to exceed the agency's
paperwork burden reduction goal stated in the Information Collection
Budget. 

The Acting Administrator said another example involves OMB's
implementation of its IRM responsibilities.  Under the 1980 and 1995
PRAs, IRM is the broad umbrella under which all of OMB's PRA
responsibilities are carried out.  However, he said that the report's
conclusions appear to be based on a narrow reading of a particular
section of the PRA, rather than on a broad reading of the PRA itself. 

He also said that OMB's annual performance plans and reports already
discuss OIRA's PRA responsibilities and describe the targets by which
OIRA's attainment of those responsibilities will be met, and he said
that OIRA has the resources adequate to meet its many
responsibilities.  Finally, he suggested a number of technical and
clarifying changes in the report. 


   OUR EVALUATION OF AGENCY
   COMMENTS
----------------------------------------------------------- Letter :11

In relation to the Acting Administrator's first point regarding the
scope of our review, we clearly stated in several places in the draft
report, including the title, that the report discusses only selected
OIRA responsibilities under the PRA.  The "Objectives, Scope, and
Methodology" section of the report says "[w]e focused our review
solely on OIRA's implementation of the specific responsibilities
delineated in the objectives.  We did not examine the implementation
of OIRA's other PRA responsibilities, including its responsibilities
in the areas of federal information technology, records management,
and statistical policies." The first sentence of the "Conclusions"
section states that "[t]his report examines some, but not all, of
OIRA's specific responsibilities under the 1995 PRA." Also, in the
"Background" section we noted that OIRA has many other statutory and
executive order responsibilities related to regulatory management,
and we specifically delineated OIRA's responsibilities under UMRA,
SBREFA, and other statutes.  Therefore, we believe that the report
makes clear its scope limitations, and it also provides the context
needed to understand the complexity and breadth of the PRA
responsibilities on which we focused. 

We have issued other reports and testimonies related to OIRA's PRA
responsibilities that were outside of the scope of this report and
that criticized OIRA's performance in those areas.  Therefore, even
if this report had been expanded to address these other
responsibilities, there is no assurance that the report would have,
as the Acting Administrator suggests, reached a different conclusion
regarding the extent to which OIRA had fulfilled those
responsibilities.  For example, in September 1996 we reported that
although OMB had taken some steps to improve information security,
its oversight efforts were uneven and OMB "generally did not
proactively attempt to identify and promote resolution of fundamental
security program weaknesses that are likely to be at the root of
these problems."\23 We have also previously reported concerns about
OMB's capacity to coordinate the budgets and statistical activities
of the agencies in the federal statistical system.\24

Furthermore, we believe that the PRA responsibilities on which we
focused (e.g., establishment of burden-reduction goals and
development of IRM strategic plans) are central to the successful
implementation of the act.  Within those areas, we believe that the
report presents a complete, balanced, and accurate picture of OIRA's
actions and, in several cases, its lack of action. 

The Acting Administrator indicated that OMB's Information Collection
Budgets have kept Congress and congressional committees informed
regarding progress toward the burden reduction goals in the PRA, and
he said that OIRA has informed Congress through "formal and informal
contacts" that the goals are unlikely to be met because of current
statutory requirements.  We called the Acting Administrator to
determine what "formal and informal contacts" he was referring to in
his comments, and he said that OIRA officials had told both majority
and minority congressional staff that the PRA's burden-reduction
goals were unlikely to be met.  However, he said that OIRA had never
communicated that conclusion to Congress or congressional committees
in any testimonies, letters, or other written documents.  Also,
although the ICBs in OIRA's annual reports contain information on
governmentwide progress toward the burden-reduction goals envisioned
in the PRA, those documents do not clearly state that the goals are
unlikely to be met or that existing statutory requirements are the
reason. 

The Acting Administrator indicated that the PRA requires OIRA to set
agency burden-reduction goals at the levels that the agencies
believed represented their "maximum practicable opportunity," and
that these goals may not total to the governmentwide goal.  We
continue to believe that Congress, when it enacted the PRA,
envisioned a relationship between the governmentwide goals and the
agency specific goals.  If OIRA believes that agencies' statutory and
program missions make achievement of these interrelated goals
unattainable, or that the PRA's requirements regarding governmentwide
and agency specific goals are inconsistent, OIRA should notify
Congress of its conclusions.  To date, OIRA has not done so.  We also
continue to believe that agencies will not be motivated to improve
their performance in reducing paperwork burden by OIRA's practice of
setting agency-specific goals after 10 months of the fiscal year have
passed at a level that the agencies expect to reach within the next 2
months. 

The Acting Administrator's statement regarding OMB's inability to
disapprove an agency's proposed information collection simply because
it may cause the agency to exceed its burden-reduction goal does not
address our intended point.  The PRA requires OIRA to set both
governmentwide and agency specific burden-reduction goals.  The
establishment of those goals does not, in any way, inhibit OIRA's
ability to review and, if necessary, disapprove an agency's proposed
collection of information.  Similarly, OIRA's reviews of agencies
proposed information collections does not inhibit its ability to
establish burden-reduction goals.  The act does not require agencies
to meet the burden-reduction goals, only that OIRA and the agencies
establish them. 

In another portion of his response, the Acting Administrator said
that "[u]nder the 1980 and 1995 PRAs, IRM is the broad umbrella under
which all of OMB's PRA responsibilities are carried out." We agree
that the 1995 PRA (but not the 1980 act) envisions IRM as a central
focus of OIRA's (and the agencies') responsibilities under the act. 
Conceptually, all of OIRA's responsibilities under the act can be
viewed as IRM-related.  However, we believe that the requirements
that OIRA (1) develop and maintain a governmentwide IRM strategic
plan; and (2) oversee, among other things, agencies' development of
their own IRM strategic plans are central elements of OIRA's IRM
responsibilities under the PRA.  The act states that both the
governmentwide and agency-specific IRM plans are supposed to describe
how information resources help accomplish agencies' missions.  It is
only within the context of these mission-related plans that the
relevance and accomplishment of OIRA's other conceptually-related IRM
responsibilities can be assessed.  Therefore, we focused on OIRA's
actions regarding these plans in this portion of our review.  The
Acting Administrator did not, in his response, dispute our conclusion
that OIRA had not satisfied all of its responsibilities in this area. 

The Acting Administrator also said that OMB's annual performance
plans and reports under the Results Act already discuss OIRA's PRA
responsibilities and describe the targets by which OIRA's attainment
of those responsibilities will be met.  As we point out in the
report, OMB's February 1998 performance plan under the Results Act
does not identify the specific strategies and resources that it will
use to achieve the performance goal to "work with agencies to reduce
paperwork burdens." Also, the plan does not provide performance
measures that would allow Congress and the public to determine how
well OMB is achieving these goals.  Finally, OMB's program
performance reports under the Results Act are not due until March 31,
2000.  Therefore, we did not change our recommendation. 

Finally, we accepted some, but not all, of the Acting Administrator's
technical and clarifying changes to the draft report.  For example,
at his suggestion, we noted that the Clinger-Cohen Act amended parts
of the PRA.  We also clarified the scope of some of the headings in
the report. 


--------------------
\23 Information Security:  Opportunities for Improved OMB Oversight
of Agency Practices (GAO/AIMD-96-110, Sept.  24, 1996). 

\24 Statistical Agencies:  Adherence to Guidelines and Coordination
of Budgets (GAO/GGD-95-65, Aug.  9, 1995). 


--------------------------------------------------------- Letter :11.1

As agreed with your office, unless you publically announce its
contents earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report
until 30 days from the date of this letter.  At that time, we will
send copies to the Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Committee on
Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Oversight, Restructuring and
the District of Columbia; other interested committees; and the
Director of OMB.  We will also make copies available to others upon
request.  Major contributors to this report were Curtis Copeland,
Assistant Director; and Elizabeth Powell, Evaluator-in-Charge. 
Please contact me at (202) 512-8676 if you have any questions. 

Sincerely yours,

L.  Nye Stevens
Director, Federal Management
 and Workforce Issues


*** End of document. ***