Recommendation: To help improve the Five-Star System's ability to enable consumers to understand nursing home quality and make distinctions between high- and low- performing homes, the Administrator of CMS should add information to the Five-Star System that allows consumers to compare nursing homes nationally.

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Status: Open

Comments: HHS did not concur with this recommendation. CMS officials told us in July 2019 that they do not plan to implement this recommendation. We maintain that adding national comparison information is important.

Recommendation: The Director of the Office of Management and Budget, in consultation with the Performance Improvement Council and General Services Administration, should ensure the information presented on Performance.gov consistently complies with GPRAMA public reporting requirements for the website's content.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open

Comments: In February 2018, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and General Services Administration launched an updated version of Performance.gov. Our updated analysis of information presented on the site in August 2020 found that it does not meet all requirements. However, OMB continues to take action to address this recommendation. For example, Performance.gov does not include a required inventory of federal programs. In July 2020, OMB reported that it is working with agencies to address this requirement. Beginning with the fiscal year 2021 federal budget cycle, OMB and agencies plan to merge implementation of existing web-based reporting of performance and spending data to provide a more coherent picture of federal programs and activities. We will continue to monitor the status of actions taken to address this recommendation.

Recommendation: To better ensure agencies fulfill their requirements, including implementing IQA guidelines and helping to promote easier public access to IQA information on agency websites, the Director of OMB should consolidate and centralize on OMB's IQA guidance website a government-wide summary of requests for correction submitted under the IQA.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open

Comments: According to OMB, during the last two years OIRA has significantly improved the ease of access to and findability of documents on OMB's information quality website. OMB says it has a number of additional improvements in progress. We have requested information on those additional improvements. We will continue to monitor OMB's efforts related to this recommendation.

Recommendation: To better ensure agencies fulfill their requirements, including implementing IQA guidelines and helping to promote easier public access to IQA information on agency websites, the Director of OMB should work with the Department of Defense and the Federal Housing Finance Agency to help ensure that they post their IQA administrative mechanisms and IQA guidance online.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open

Comments: According to OMB, it worked with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to improve the accessibility of their Information Quality Act guidance. In addition, OMB stated that FHFA took it upon themselves to update their guidelines. OMB has not provided any information regarding its work with DOD in this area. We will continue to monitor OMB's efforts related to this recommendation.

Recommendation: To better ensure agencies fulfill their requirements, including implementing IQA guidelines and helping to promote easier public access to IQA information on agency websites, the Director of OMB should provide additional guidance for agencies to help improve the transparency and usability of their IQA websites to help ensure the public can easily find and access online information about agency IQA implementation. Such guidance should include (1) specific time frames for agencies to post information on the IQA correction requests they have received, including making it clear when agencies have not received IQA requests; (2) instructions for agencies to include a statement on their IQA websites that the agencies may address correction requests through other administrative processes; (3) instructions for agencies to include, when responding to correction requests, whether those agencies plan to address the request through another administrative processes, and if so, which process they will use; and (4) suggestions for improving usability of agencies' websites including fixing broken links.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open

Comments: According to OMB, in conjunction with its annual data call, the agency has and will continue to provide guidance to agencies about improving the transparency and usability of their websites, including the need to update broken links. In addition OMB issued M-19-15, designed to address a number of related and additional implementation concerns, including transparency and procedural improvements. OMB's guidance to date has not included specific items as specified in the recommendation. We will continue to monitor OMB's efforts related to this recommendation.

Recommendation: To enhance the value of Performance.gov for intended audiences and improve the ability to identify and prioritize potential improvements, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget--working with the Performance Improvement Council and the General Services Administration--should seek to ensure that all performance, search, and customer satisfaction metrics, consistent with leading practices outlined in HowTo.gov, are tracked for the website, and, where appropriate, create goals for those metrics to help identify and prioritize potential improvements to Performance.gov.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open

Comments: As of October 2020, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and General Services Administration (GSA) had taken some actions toward addressing this recommendation. According to information that OMB staff provided in March 2019, OMB and GSA tracked 12 metrics for Performance.gov that are recommended for federal websites. However, as of October 2020, OMB and GSA had not created goals for any of those metrics, nor did they track 12 additional recommended metrics. In March 2019, GSA staff told us that, in lieu of goals, OMB and GSA staff held regular meetings to discuss the data collected for the metrics they tracked. However, without the additional metrics or any goals, OMB and GSA lack a full understanding of how well the website is performing, and what actions are needed to improve its performance and usability to achieve desired results. We will continue to monitor the status of actions taken to address this recommendation.