Two working groups to improve federal spending data

The Office of Management and Budget has created two new federal working groups that they hope will continue to push and implement transparency and openness in government specifically around federal spending.

Federal chief information officer Vivek Kundra and federal chief technology officer Aneesh Chopra announced the new entities on their blog Feb. 5.

President Obama's open government directive from January 2009 called for the creation of these working groups.

The first group of senior leaders will oversee the quality and objectivity of federal spending information.

"These senior leaders will ensure that the information conforms to OMB guidance on information quality and adequate systems and processes are in place within the agencies to promote such conformity," the blog states. "[T]hese senior leaders will work together to ensure that federal spending information meets adequate controls to ensure quality data is are available to the public. The senior leaders will also participate in the agency's Senior Management Council."

The 36 members come from both large and small agencies, and mostly are chief financial officers and management officials.

The second working group will "focus on transparency, accountability, participation and collaboration within the federal government."

The entity will oversee the development of and sharing of best practices to promote transparency, participation and collaboration, and the coordination of efforts to implement spending mandates to make information more transparent.

This 34-member group includes CIOs, chief technology officers and chief management officers.

OMB's announcement of these two groups came just before the administration announced a new open government dashboard to track agency progress in meeting the directive.

This dashboard will be among the more than seven that OMB is expecting to set up over the next year.

For the open government dashboard, OMB is rating agencies across five areas:

• High value data
• Data integrity
• Open Web page
• Public consultation
• Open government plan

Currently every agency, but three are rated green-meaning they have met 100 percent of their goal so far.

The three agencies-the Office of Personnel Management, the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the U.S. Trade Representative-received yellow scores in one or two categories.

The next milestones for around the open government directive are on March 8 when the White House will issue a framework for agencies to offer challenges and prizes to find innovative solutions to problems.

Additionally, agency open government plans are due by April 7, while the White House "will review and revise federal information policies to promote greater openness."

"Whereas the indicators have been largely binary thus far (e.g. Do you have an Open Government Webpage?), the Plans present a special opportunity for the dashboard to evolve over time and empower the public while spurring a race to the top amongst agencies," Chopra writes on the blog. "[T]he Open Government Working Group is preparing a set of 'stretch criteria' to help evaluate the plans and celebrate those agencies that exceed the minimal requirements of the directive to reflect the President's vision of openness and accountability as articulated in the memorandum on Transparency and Open Government. We are eager to seek your input in this process, so keep an eye out for opportunities to weigh in over the next two weeks."

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