GAO has again called for more guidance from OMB and Treasury to help agencies carry out the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014, repeating at a House hearing many of the points it made in an earlier report.
That law 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 two central agencies have issued standardized data element definitions for reporting federal spending under the law, “but the lack of key guidance has slowed the ability of agencies to operationalize the data standards.” A firm definition of how data should be reported is needed to produce consistent and comparable data, it said.
Also, the technical guidance on matters such as a standard format for reporting data elements continues to evolve, with each iteration resulting in revisions “which may adversely affect the timely implementation of the act.”
The act also requires OMB to establish a pilot program to develop recommendations for simplifying reporting for grants and contracts. GAO said that an announced pilot—with HHS as the executing agency for the grant portion while OMB leads the procurement portion with support from GSA—”will likely meet requirements established under the act and will partially reflect leading practices for effective pilot design. However, the procurement portion does not clearly document how it will contribute to meeting the act’s requirements nor does it reflect leading practices for effective pilot design.”
