Federal Register

Better Electronic Technology Planning Could Improve Production and Dissemination Gao ID: GGD-93-5 November 10, 1992

The Code of Federal Regulations has been in electronic format for more than a decade, but most documents submitted for inclusion in the daily Federal Register are still paper processed before being sent to the Government Printing Office (GPO) for final composition. Agency submission of documents in electronic format could cut GPO composition costs and improve operations, but agencies have not widely adopted automation because they believe it is not cost effective. Plans for agencies to use telecommunications when submitting documents to the Office of the Federal Register for publication have also met with limited success. Government dissemination of the Federal Register in electronic format is similarly limited, and little is known about user interest in different electronic publication formats. The Administrative Committee of the Federal Register has tried to boost the use of information technologies but has failed to provide continuing guidance and support for automation pilot programs at GPO and the Federal Register. At its last meeting in June 1992, the committee directed that new initiatives be developed. However, it neither provided a clearly articulated strategic plan describing how Federal Register publications will be produced and distributed in the future nor discussed the technologies needed to support these operations.

GAO found that: (1) most FR documents are currently processed exclusively on paper until final composition at the Government Printing Office (GPO); (2) GPO offered agencies a discount for submission of fully coded documents on disks, but agency officials thought that the costs associated with developing and maintaining a coding capability were greater than the possible discounts; (3) in September 1991, the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) established a task force to increase the number of FR documents submitted in electronic format; (4) GPO and OFR have collaborated on pilot projects to test certain electronic dissemination formats; (5) if GPO included graphics in its FR database, it could capture information that was not in machine-readable format; (6) closer coordination in the early stages of the planning process and better assessment of potential automation benefits, costs, and needed resources could have made the development of some FR electronic technology projects more efficient and avoided delays; (7) the Administrative Committee of the Federal Register (ACFR) did not provide the continuing oversight needed to direct and support the FR/Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) automation initiatives; and (8) OFR and GPO had no current, formally articulated plan describing FR/CFR production and dissemination systems and technologies they expected to have in operation 5 or more years from now.

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.

Director: Team: Phone:


The Justia Government Accountability Office site republishes public reports retrieved from the U.S. GAO These reports should not be considered official, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Justia.