What OMB Looks for When Agencies Request Approval to Conduct Surveys

• Activity Number: 181
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Government Statistics
• Author(s): Brian A. Harris-Kojetin*+ and Susan Schechter and Katherine K. Wallman
• Companies: U.S. Office of Management and Budget and Office of Management and Budget and U.S. Office of Management and Budget
• Keywords: best practices ; government surveys ; standards

Abstract

Federal agencies conduct and sponsor a wide variety of surveys to gather information from state, local, and tribal governments, businesses, and individuals. In addition, surveys frequently are used in program evaluations or research studies conducted or sponsored by federal agencies. Under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), agencies must obtain approval from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) prior to collecting any information from 10 or more respondents. To assist agencies in preparing these information collection requests (ICRs), OMB is developing a series of questions and answers that have commonly arisen in the OMB review of agency surveys. The Q&A's address issues about the OMB review process and timelines as well as methodological issues that frequently arise during OMB's review. The guidance is intended to help agencies better understand OMB's expectations for survey information collections and to assist them in identifying and documenting information to facilitate the review process. We provide an overview of the current draft guidance and discuss how it is intended to be used by agencies and by OMB desk officers.