	Data Governance and the Transition to a New Administration

OMB and Treasury have established a new Data Standards Committee  that will be responsible for maintaining established standards and  developing new data elements or data definitions that could affect more  than one functional community (e.g., financial management, financial  assistance, and procurement). Although this represents progress in  responding to GAO’s prior recommendation, more remains to be done to  establish a data governance structure that is consistent with leading  practices to ensure the integrity of data standards over time. The transition to a new administration presents risks to  implementing the DATA Act, including potential shifted priorities or loss of  momentum. The lack of a robust and institutionalized data governance  structure for managing efforts going forward presents additional risks  regarding the ability of agencies to meet their statutory deadlines in the  event that priorities shift over time. In reviewing the 24 CFO Act agencies’ August 2016  implementation plan updates, we found that 19 of the 24 CFO Act  agencies continue to face challenges implementing the DATA Act. We  identified four overarching categories of challenges reported by these  agencies that may impede their ability to effectively and efficiently  implement the DATA Act: systems integration issues, lack of resources,  evolving and complex reporting requirements, and inadequate guidance. To address these challenges, most agencies reported taking mitigating  actions, such as making changes to internal policies and procedures,  leveraging existing resources, utilizing external resources, and employing  manual and temporary workarounds. However, the information reported by the CFO Act agencies in their  implementation plan updates indicates that some agencies are at  increased risk of not meeting the May 2017 reporting deadline because of  these challenges. In addition, inspectors general for some agencies, such  as the Departments of Labor and Housing and Urban Development, have  issued readiness review reports indicating that their respective agencies  are at risk of not meeting the reporting deadline. Operationalizing Data Standards and Technical Specifications for Data Reporting

In May 2016, in response to a prior GAO recommendation, OMB released  additional guidance on reporting financial and award information required  under the act to address potential clarity, consistency, and quality issues  with the definitions of standardized data elements. In August 2016, OMB released additional draft guidance on how agencies  should report financial information involving specific transactions, such as  intragovernmental transfers, and how agency senior accountable officials  should provide quality assurances for submitted data. Although OMB has made some progress with these efforts, other data  definitions lack clarity which still needs to be addressed to ensure that  agencies report consistent and comparable data. On September 30, 2016, Treasury updated its  version of the broker, which it stated was fully capable of performing the  key functions of extracting and validating agency data. Treasury officials  told us that although they plan to continue to refine the broker to improve  its functionality and overall user experience, they have no plans to alter  these key functions. Agencies have reported making progress creating their data submissions  and testing them in the broker, but work remains to be done before actual  reporting can begin. However, some of these interim  solutions rely on manual processing, which can be burdensome and  increase the risk for errors. Pilot to Reduce Recipient Reporting Burden

The Section 5 Pilot is designed to develop recommendations to reduce  the reporting burden for federal funds recipients. Our review of the revised design for both the grants and procurement  portions of the pilot found that they partly met each of the leading  practices for effective pilot design (shown in the text box below). Although this represented significant progress since April 2016, we  identified an area where further improvement is still needed. Specifically,  the plan for the procurement portion of the pilot does not clearly describe  and document how findings related to centralized certified payroll  reporting will be more broadly applicable to the many other types of  required procurement reporting. However, in late November 2016, OMB staff and General Services  Administration officials informed us that they decided to delay further  implementation of the procurement portion of the pilot in order to ensure  that security procedures designed to protect personally identifiable  information were in place. In our report being released today, we made a new recommendation to  OMB that would help ensure that the procurement portion of the Section 5  Pilot better reflects leading practices for effective pilot design. In  commenting on the report being released today, OMB neither agreed nor  disagreed with the recommendation, but provided an overview of its  implementation efforts since passage of the DATA Act. GAO-17-156. DATA Act: Data Standards Established, but More Complete and Timely  Guidance Is Needed to Ensure Effective Implementation.
Why GAO Did This Study

The DATA Act requires OMB and Treasury to establish government-wide data standards and requires federal agencies to begin reporting financial and payment data in accordance with these standards by May 2017. The act also requires establishment of a pilot program to develop recommendations for simplifying federal award reporting for grants and contracts. Consistent with GAO’s mandate under the act, the report being released today is one in a series that GAO will provide to the Congress. This statement discusses steps taken by OMB, Treasury, and federal agencies to implement the act and highlights key findings and the recommendation from GAO’s report ( GAO-17-156 ). As part of this work, GAO reviewed DATA Act implementation plan updates and interviewed staff at OMB, Treasury, and other selected agencies.

What GAO Found

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Department of the Treasury (Treasury), and federal agencies have taken steps to implement the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act); however, more work is needed for effective implementation.
Data governance and the transition to a new administration . OMB and Treasury have established a new Data Standards Committee responsible for maintaining established standards and developing new data elements or data definitions. Although this represents progress, more remains to be done to establish a data governance structure that is consistent with leading practices to ensure the integrity of data standards over time. The transition to a new administration presents risks to implementing the DATA Act, including a potential shift in priorities. The lack of a robust and institutionalized data governance structure for managing efforts going forward also presents risks regarding the ability of agencies to meet the statutory deadlines in the event that priorities shift over time.
Implementation plan updates . According to the 24 Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act agencies’ implementation plan updates, most of them continue to face challenges implementing the DATA Act. GAO identified four overarching categories of challenges reported by agencies that may impede their ability to effectively and efficiently implement the DATA Act: systems integration issues, lack of resources, evolving and complex reporting requirements, and inadequate guidance. To address these challenges, most agencies reported taking mitigating actions, such as making changes to internal policies and procedures, leveraging existing resources, and employing manual and temporary workarounds. However, the information reported by the CFO Act agencies in their implementation plan updates indicates that some agencies are at increased risk of not meeting the May 2017 reporting deadline because of these challenges. In addition, inspectors general for some agencies have issued readiness review reports indicating that their respective agencies are at risk of not meeting the reporting deadline.
Operationalizing data standards and technical specifications for data reporting . In November 2016, OMB issued additional guidance on how agencies should report financial information involving specific transactions, such as intragovernmental transfers, and how agency senior accountable officials should provide quality assurances for submitted data. Although OMB has made some progress with these efforts, other data definitions lack clarity which still needs to be addressed to ensure that agencies report consistent and comparable data. In September 2016, Treasury updated its version of the DATA Act broker, which it stated was fully capable of performing the key functions of extracting and validating agency data. Treasury officials stated that although they plan to continue to refine the broker to improve its functionality and overall user experience, they have no plans to alter key functions. Agencies have reported making progress creating their data submissions and testing them in the broker, but work remains before actual reporting can begin. Some agencies reported in their implementation plan updates that they developed plans for interim solutions, but some of these interim solutions rely on manual processing, which can be burdensome and increase the risk for errors.
Pilot to reduce recipient reporting burden . GAO's review of the revised design for both the grants and procurement portions of the pilot found that they partly met each of the leading practices for effective pilot design. Although this represented significant progress since April 2016, GAO identified an area where further improvement is still needed. Specifically, the plan for the procurement portion of the pilot does not clearly describe and document how findings related to centralized certified payroll reporting will be applicable to other types of required procurement reporting. Further, in November 2016, this portion of the pilot was delayed to ensure that security procedures were in place to protect personally identifiable information.

What GAO Recommends

In addition to prior recommendations that GAO has made, in its most recent report, GAO recommends that OMB take steps to help ensure that the procurement portion of the pilot better reflects leading practices for effective pilot design. OMB neither agreed nor disagreed with the recommendation.