Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) efforts to minimize the burden that information requests placed on the public, focusing on: (1) how OMB handled agency requests for data collection and the timeliness and technical adequacy of its reviews; (2) how OMB policies and practices influenced agencies' decisions to gather information; and (3) the influence of agency and OMB actions on information availability.
GAO found that: (1) OMB received over 20,000 information collection requests from 211 agencies between 1982 and 1987; (2) although OMB had a formal review process, its office staff did not consistently apply review policies; (3) the inconsistencies stemmed from the use of varying criteria for determining priority reviews and little or no on-the-job training for new staff; (4) despite the variability in the review processes, OMB approved 95 percent of agency submissions; (5) 12 percent of the research approvals and 8 percent of the nonresearch approvals were formally modified and an unknown percentage were informally modified during negotiations between OMB and agencies; (6) although many agencies had perfect approval rates, about 7 percent of the agencies had persistent difficulties in obtaining approvals; (7) although OMB reviewed the majority of submissions within the mandated time limits, the median time for reviews increased; (8) many submissions had such technical inadequacies as low expected response rates, the potential for response bias, underreliance on conventional sampling methodology, or inadequate questionnaire design; (9) OMB regulations and guidelines heavily influenced the processes that agencies used to make information-gathering decisions; (10) more than half of the managers interviewed stated that OMB reviews had a negative effect on their information collection; and (11) some agencies attempted to avoid OMB reviews through mechanisms that could decrease quality and increase information collection costs, while some agencies stopped collecting some data because of difficulties in the clearance process.
