General government: DATA Act Data Governance (2020-05)
The Office of Management and Budget, in collaboration with the Department of the Treasury, should establish a robust data governance structure to ensure greater consistency and comparability of reported data to better manage fragmentation in federal spending data.
Year Identified: 2020
Area Number: 5
Area Type: Fragmentation, Overlap & Duplication
2 Total Action(s)
To help ensure that agencies report consistent and comparable data on federal spending, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in collaboration with the Secretary of the Treasury, should provide agencies with additional guidance to address potential clarity, consistency, or quality issues with the definitions for specific data elements including Award Description and Primary Place of Performance and clearly document and communicate these actions to agencies providing these data as well as to end-users.
To help ensure that agencies report consistent and comparable data on federal spending, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in collaboration with the Secretary of the Treasury, should provide agencies with additional guidance to address potential clarity, consistency, or quality issues with the definitions for specific data elements including Award Description and Primary Place of Performance and clearly document and communicate these actions to agencies providing these data as well as to end-users.
OMB agreed with GAO’s 2016 recommendation and, in collaboration with the Department of the Treasury, took several steps to address this recommendation. For the Award Description data element, this included the issuance of a Controller Alert in August 2020 that provided federal agencies with specific guidance on the characteristics of clear and useful submissions.
For reporting on the primary place of performance where an award takes place, this included the adoption of a new data element—"Primary Place of Performance Scope"—in January 2020. This data element was created to help address inconsistencies previously identified with reporting location data that span a geographic entity, such as an entire state or county instead of having a discrete geospatial location.
These actions were clearly documented with information publicly available on Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service Data Transparency webpage and www.CFO.gov and should improve the collection and reporting of consistent and comparable information. This will help ensure agencies are reporting key data elements for transparency in a consistent, comparable, and transparent manner.
To ensure that the integrity of data standards is maintained over time, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in collaboration with the Secretary of the Treasury, should establish a set of clear policies and processes for developing and maintaining data standards that are consistent with leading practices for data governance.
To ensure that the integrity of data standards is maintained over time, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in collaboration with the Secretary of the Treasury, should establish a set of clear policies and processes for developing and maintaining data standards that are consistent with leading practices for data governance.
OMB did not comment on GAO’s July 2015 recommendation but has taken action to implement it. OMB issued guidance in 2019 (M-19-16, "Centralized Mission Support Capabilities for the Federal Government") that set out key aspects of the governance process for developing and maintaining interagency data standards under the shared services cross agency priority goal.
In July 2020, OMB provided additional clarification on how the data standards established under the DATA Act would be governed within the broader governance structure for shared services described in M-19-16. Consistent with leading practices for data governance, these clarifications include processes for approving new data standards for reporting spending data, obtaining input from stakeholders, and managing and communicating changes to established data standards. Implementing this recommendation helped ensure agencies are reporting key data elements for transparency in a consistent, comparable, and transparent manner.
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