The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act) requires agencies' Offices of Inspector General (OIG) to issue reports on their assessments of the quality of the agencies' spending data submissions and compliance with the DATA Act. The scope of all OIG reviews covered their agencies' second quarter fiscal year 2017 submissions. The files the OIGs used to select and review sample...

The DATA Act called on federal agencies to increase the transparency of roughly $3.7 trillion in annual spending by improving the quality of data available to Congress, federal managers, and the public. We found that budget data were largely consistent with agency records; however, only between 0 to 1 percent of award records (e.g., grants, contracts, and loans) were fully consistent. Additionall...

Under the DATA Act, federal agencies must improve the federal spending data that are available to the public through the USASpending.gov website. We've reviewed the implementation of the DATA Act and found that financial management challenges at federal agencies, as well as issues with OMB’s reporting guidance, will affect the quality of the data published on the website. OMB also established a...

As of January 31, 2017, 30 Offices of Inspector General (OIG) had completed Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act) readiness reviews for their respective agencies, most of which were completed from June 2016 through November 2016. GAO noted variations across the type of reviews conducted, standards used, and scope of work. For example, 16 OIG reviews focused on agencies' im...

The DATA Act requires more transparency in federal spending data and increases the types of spending data that agencies make available to the public. We found that agencies face challenges in implementing the common data standards required by the act and in preparing their data for submission to Treasury ahead of the act's May 2017 deadline. We also looked at a pilot project that is intended to r...

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Department of the Treasury (Treasury), and federal agencies have taken steps to implement the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act); however, more work is needed for effective implementation.Data governance and the transition to a new administration. OMB and Treasury have established a new Data Standards Committee responsible...

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), General Services Administration (GSA), and the Performance Improvement Council (PIC) took several steps to improve the usefulness of Performance.gov, a website intended to serve as the public window to the federal government's goals and performance. However, their actions do not fully meet selected Digitalgov.gov requirements for federal websites (which a...

GAO found that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) have taken steps to assure the quality of the federal spending data that will be made available to the public under the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act). These steps include creating a broker system to (1) check that submitted data follow a standardized format that w...

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) have not designed and implemented controls or fully documented processes related to the review and use of agency implementation plans for the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act). These controls and processes are to be used for reviewing agencies' implementation plans and monitoring ag...

The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA) requires agencies to describe their major management challenges and identify associated performance information in their agency performance plans (APP). GAO found, however, that 14 of 24 agencies reviewed did not describe their major management challenges in their APPs as required. This is, in part, because the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) gui...

The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA) requires the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to coordinate with agencies to develop cross-agency priority (CAP) goals, which are 4-year outcome-oriented goals covering a number of complex or high-risk management and mission issues.Examples of CAP goals and goal statements For the current set of CAP goals covering the period from 2014-2018, OMB and...

As required by the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is conducting a pilot program, known as the Section 5 Pilot, aimed at developing recommendations for reducing recipient reporting burden for grantees and contractors. OMB partnered with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to design and implement the grants port...

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) have taken some significant steps toward implementing the key provisions of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act); however, several challenges need to be addressed in order to successfully meet the act's requirements.Data standards and technical schema. GAO reported in January 2016,...

As required by the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) issued definitions for 57 federal spending data elements. GAO found that most definitions adhered to leading practices derived from international standards for formulating data definitions. Specifically, 12 of the 57 definitions...

The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board's (Recovery Board) Recovery Operations Center (ROC) provided significant analytical services primarily to Offices of the Inspector General (OIG) to support antifraud and other activities. Congress initially established the Recovery Board to oversee funds appropriated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Subsequently, it expanded...

The six agencies GAO reviewed generally did not publicly report on how they ensured the accuracy and reliability of performance information used to measure progress on their highest priority performance goals, referred to as agency priority goals (APGs). The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA) requires agencies to identify the following when publicly reporting on their APGs: 1) how performance...

Since the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) became law in May 2014, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) have taken significant steps towards implementing key provisions. These steps include the release of 27 data standards, draft technical documentation, and implementation guidance to help federal agencies meet their responsi...

GAO's prior work on federal data transparency has found persistent challenges related to the quality and completeness of the spending data agencies report to USAspending.gov. For example, GAO reported in June 2014 that roughly $619 billion in assistance awards were not properly reported. In addition, few reported awards—between 2 and 7 percent—contained information that was fully consistent wi...