The Paperwork Reduction Act, aimed at curbing the billions
of hours the public spends each year filling out government
forms, may not be cutting it, the Government Accountability
Office has said.
The Office of Management and Budget calculates the burden
for fiscal 2004 was more than 7.9 billion hours and showed
a slight decrease of 128 million hours from fiscal 2003.
However, GAO called for OMB and agencies to improve the
review process for information collections and step up
compliance with the act.
It also said Congress may want to consider “mandating
pilot projects to target some collections for rigorous
analysis” similar to projects carried out by the Internal
Revenue Service and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Those agencies have set up processes other than the CIO
review mandated by the PRA that focus specifically on
reducing the burden, said GAO.
It said IRS and EPA have devoted considerable resources to
reduction efforts including public outreach — something
the agencies reported led to significant reductions and
also something the CIO review process did not achieve in
12 other case studies GAO reviewed.
The case studies showed that CIOs certified collections
“despite often missing or inadequate support from the
program offices sponsoring the collections,” a problem
worsened by “a lack of management support and weaknesses
in OMB guidance,” according to GAO-05-778T.
