Congressional Reports

Efforts To Eliminate or Modify Reporting Requirements Need To Be Improved Gao ID: AFMD-88-4 April 19, 1988

GAO reviewed the procedures that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and five executive branch agencies used to compile and present a legislative proposal for modifying or eliminating 240 congressional reporting requirements.

GAO found that: (1) as of fiscal year 1985, there were approximately 3,300 recurring reporting requirements, which cost agencies about $240 million; and (2) although OMB used agency recommendations to develop a legislative proposal to modify or eliminate 240 reporting requirements, Congress only changed or rescinded 23. GAO also found that: (1) agencies did not sufficiently communicate with Congress either before or after submitting the proposal; (2) most of the justifications presented did not adequately demonstrate the need to eliminate or modify the reporting requirements; and (3) agencies did not use existing reports management processes to ensure that the recommendations they made satisfied congressional information needs.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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