Submission for OMB Review; General Services Administration Acquisition Regulation; Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery

AGENCY:

General Services Administration (GSA).

ACTION:

Notice of request for an extension to an existing OMB clearance.

SUMMARY:

Under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Regulatory Secretariat Division will be submitting to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a request to review and approve an extension of a previously approved information collection requirement regarding the Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery.

DATES:

Submit comments on or before July 20, 2016.

ADDRESSES:

Submit comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden to: Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs of OMB, Attention: Desk Officer for GSA, Room 10236, NEOB, Washington, DC 20503. Additionally submit a copy to GSA by any of the following methods:

• Regulations.gov: http://www.regulations.gov. Submit comments via the Federal eRulemaking portal by searching for “Information Collection 3090-0297, Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery.” Select the link “Submit a Comment” that corresponds with “Information Collection 3090-0297, Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery.” Follow the instructions provided at the “Submit a Comment” screen. Please include your name, company name (if any), and “Information Collection 3090-0297” on your attached document.
• Mail: General Services Administration, Regulatory Secretariat Division (MVCB), 1800 F Street NW., Washington, DC 20405. Attn: Ms. Flowers/IC 3090-0297, Generic Clearance.

Instructions: Please submit comments only and cite Information Collection 3090-0297, Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery, in all correspondence related to this collection. Comments received generally will be posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov,, including any personal and/or business confidential information provided. To confirm receipt of your comment(s), please check www.regulations.gov,, approximately two to three days after submission to verify posting (except allow 30 days for posting of comments submitted by mail).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Ms. Hada Flowers, Office of Governmentwide Policy, GSA, at 202-501-4755, or email hada.flowers@gsa.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

A. Purpose

A notice was published in the Federal Register at 81 FR 20638 on April 8, 2016. No comments were received. The information collection activity will garner qualitative customer and stakeholder feedback in an efficient, timely manner, in accordance with the Administration's commitment to improving service delivery. 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.

Feedback collected under this generic clearance will provide useful information, but it will 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 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. The Digital Government Strategy released by the White House in May, 2012 drives agencies to have a more customer-centric focus. Because of this, GSA anticipates an increase in requests to use this generic clearance, as the plan states that: A customer-centric principle charges us to do several things: Conduct research to understand the customer's business, needs and desires; “make content more broadly available and accessible and present it through multiple channels in a program- and device-agnostic way; make content more accurate and understandable by maintaining plain language and content freshness standards; and offer easy paths for feedback to ensure we continually improve service delivery.

The customer-centric principle holds true whether our customers are internal (e.g., the civilian and military federal workforce in both classified and unclassified environments) or external (e.g., individual citizens, businesses, research organizations, and state, local, and tribal governments).”

B. Annual Reporting Burden

Respondents: 160,082.

Responses per Respondent: 1.

Total Annual Responses: 160,082.

Hours per response: 3.8386 minutes.

Total Burden hours: 10,241.

C. Public Comments

Public comments are particularly invited on: Whether this collection of information is necessary and whether it will have practical utility; whether our estimate of the public burden of this collection of information is accurate, and based on valid assumptions and methodology; ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected.

Obtaining Copies of Proposals: Requesters may obtain a copy of the information collection documents from the General Services Administration, Regulatory Secretariat Division (MVCB), 1800 F Street NW., Washington, DC 20405, telephone 202-501-4755. Please cite OMB Control No. 3090-0297, Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery, in all correspondence.