Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comment Request; Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery

AGENCY:

Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

ACTION:

Notice and request for comments.

SUMMARY:

As part of a Federal Government-wide effort to streamline the process to seek feedback from the public on service delivery, OMB is coordinating the development of the following proposed Generic Information Collection Request (Generic ICR): “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery” for approval under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3501 et. seq.). This notice announces that agencies intend to submit this collection to OMB for approval and solicits comments on specific aspects for the proposed information collection,

A copy of the draft supporting statement is available at http://www.regulations.gov,, (see Docket ID OMB-2010-0021). Following review and disposition of public comments on this joint 60-day notice, each Agency will submit its own Generic ICR to OMB for review and will issue its own 30-day notice to solicit additional public comments.

DATES:

Consideration will be given to all comments received by February 22, 2011.

ADDRESSES:

Submit comments by one of the following methods:

• Web site: www.regulations.gov. Direct comments to Docket ID OMB-2010-0021.
• E-mail: ServiceDeliveryComments@omb.eop.gov.
• Fax: (202) 395-7245.

Comments submitted in response to this notice may be made available to the public through relevant Web sites. For this reason, please do not include in your comments information of a confidential nature, such as sensitive personal information or proprietary information. If you send an e-mail comment, your e-mail address will be automatically captured and included as part of the comment that is placed in the public docket and made available on the Internet. Please note that responses to this public comment request containing any routine notice about the confidentiality of the communication will be treated as public comments that may be made available to the public notwithstanding the inclusion of the routine notice.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

ServiceDeliveryComments@omb.eop.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Title: Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery.

Abstract: The proposed information collection activity provides a means to garner qualitative customer and stakeholder feedback in an efficient, timely manner, in accordance with the Administration's commitment to improving service delivery. The following agencies are planning to submit this collection to OMB for approval: Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of the Interior, Department of Justice, Department of Labor Department of State, Department of Transportation, Department of the Treasury Department of Veterans Affairs, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Social Security Administration, Administrative Conference of the United States, Consumer Product Safety Commission, Corporation for National and Community Service, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Export-Import Bank of the United States, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Federal Trade Commission, Institute of Museum and Library Services, Merit Systems Protection Board, National Credit Union Administration, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Peace Corps, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, Railroad Retirement Board, Securities and Exchange Commission, Surface Transportation Board, Tennessee Valley Authority, U.S. Election Assistance Commission, U.S. International Trade Commission, and U.S. Access Board.

By qualitative feedback we mean information that provides useful insights on perceptions and opinions, but are not statistical surveys that yield quantitative results that can be generalized to the population of study. This feedback will provide insights into customer or stakeholder perceptions, experiences and expectations, provide an early warning of issues with service, or focus attention on areas where communication, training or changes in operations might improve delivery of products or services. These collections will allow for ongoing, collaborative and actionable communications between the Agency and its customers and stakeholders. It will also allow feedback to contribute directly to the improvement of program management.

The solicitation of feedback will target areas such as: timeliness, appropriateness, accuracy of information, courtesy, efficiency of service delivery, and resolution of issues with service delivery. Responses will be assessed to plan and inform efforts to improve or maintain the quality of service offered to the public. If this information is not collected, vital feedback from customers and stakeholders on the Agency's services will be unavailable.

The Agency will only submit a collection for approval under this generic clearance if it meets the following conditions:

• The collections are voluntary;
• The collections are low-burden for respondents (based on considerations of total burden hours, total number of respondents, or burden-hours per respondent) and are low-cost for both the respondents and the Federal Government;
• The collections are non-controversial and do not raise issues of concern to other Federal agencies;
• Any collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the near future;
• Personally identifiable information (PII) is collected only to the extent necessary and is not retained;
• Information gathered is intended to be used only internally for general service improvement and program management purposes and is not intended for release outside of the agency (if released, the agency must indicate the qualitative nature of the information);
• Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions; and
• Information gathered will yield qualitative information; the collections will not be designed or expected to yield statistically reliable results or used as though the results are generalizable to the population of study.

Feedback collected under this generic clearance provides useful information, but it does not yield data that can be generalized to the overall population. This type of generic clearance for qualitative information will not be used for quantitative information collections that are designed to yield reliably actionable results, such as monitoring trends over time or documenting program performance. Such data uses require more rigorous designs that address: the target population to which generalizations will be made, the sampling frame, the sample design (including stratification and clustering), the precision requirements or power calculations that justify the proposed sample size, the expected response rate, methods for assessing potential non-response bias, the protocols for data collection, and any testing procedures that were or will be undertaken prior to fielding the study. Depending on the degree of influence the results are likely to have, such collections may still be eligible for submission for other generic mechanisms that are designed to yield quantitative results.

As a general matter, information collections will not result in any new system of records containing privacy information and will not ask questions of a sensitive nature, such as sexual behavior and attitudes, religious beliefs, and other matters that are commonly considered private.

Current Actions: New collection of information.

Type of Review: New Collection.

Affected Public: Individuals and Households, Businesses and Organizations, State, Local or Tribal Government.

Estimated Number of Respondents: Below is a preliminary estimate of the aggregate burden hours for this generic clearance. This estimate based on a review of past behavior of the participating agencies and by several individual agencies' estimates for this ICR. In recognition that individual agencies will differ in how often they use this generic clearance, this burden estimate assumes that ten agencies would be the heaviest users and account for approximately ten times as great a burden as the other agencies combined. Agencies will provide more refined individual estimates of burden in their subsequent notices.

Average Expected Annual Number of activities: 25,000.

Average number of Respondents per Activity: 200.

Annual responses: 5,000,000.

Frequency of Response: Once per request.

Average minutes per response: 30.

Burden hours: 2,500,000.

Request for Comments: Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized and/or included in the request for OMB approval. Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether the information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the collection of information; (c) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents, including through the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology; and (e) estimates of capital or start-up costs and costs of operation, maintenance, and purchase of services to provide information. Burden means the total time, effort, or financial resources expended by persons to generate, maintain, retain, disclose or provide information to or for a Federal agency. This includes the time needed to review instructions; to develop, acquire, install and utilize technology and systems for the purpose of collecting, validating and verifying information, processing and maintaining information, and disclosing and providing information; to train personnel and to be able to respond to a collection of information, to search data sources, to complete and review the collection of information; and to transmit or otherwise disclose the information.

All written comments will be available for public inspection Regulations.gov.

An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid Office of Management and Budget control number.