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Agencies Vow Action at Inaugural Data Transparency Breakfast
On December 5th, trailblazers from key executive branch agencies gathered with tech sector innovators, business leaders, and transparency advocates from the United States and abroad for the Data Transparency Coalition's first-ever "Data Transparency Breakfast." Presented with the support of PwC, the breakfast featured representatives of the Treasury Department's Fiscal Service and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board -- two agencies that are poised to oversee implementation of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act), once it is passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama.
Christina Ho, recently appointed the first Executive Director of Data Transparency for the Treasury Department, opened the breakfast with an address on her agency's commitment to implement standardized "intelligent data" throughout federal financial reporting. She emphasized the need for consensus inside government to help ensure that reforms like the DATA Act are executed successfully. Ho added that the Treasury Department has been directed to "take more of a leadership role in the data transparency space" within the Obama Administration. She said that one of the most effective ways to speed adoption of open data standards within federal spending is to help agency leaders see the benefits of greater efficiency and improved management.
The DATA Act will empower the Treasury's Fiscal Service to create government-wide data standards to facilitate the integration of disconnected spending reports that are spread across several agencies. These include federal financial reporting, payment requests, budget actions, grants, and contracts. Ho's remarks made clear that the agency is already moving forward on this effort ahead of the potential legislative mandate.
Appearing alongside Ho and her Treasury colleagues, officials from the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board pointed to the tangible results that their data-driven oversight of stimulus spending has already produced. Ross Bezark, the Recovery Board's Executive Director, noted that the agency's accountability platform, which applies analytics to spending data, was so effective in helping federal inspectors general discern potential fraud and waste that its mandate was extended to oversee the disbursement of emergency aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy. Nancy DiPaolo, who serves as the Recovery Board's chief of legislative and intergovernmental affairs, said that this track record shows that "the platform is built to expand." She hailed the recent House passage of the DATA Act, which would expand the Recovery Board's existing accountability platform to encompass all federal spending.
Marcel Jemio, the chief data architect at the Treasury's Fiscal Service, led a "philosophical" discussion of the merits of data transparency, dubbing it "the most powerful lever of 21st century government." He called on agency leaders to embrace the publication of standardized data as a way to restore the public's trust in government from its historic lows. Marisa Schmader, director of the Treasury Department's project support division, added that data standardization can help agencies focus their efforts around priorities in light of the constrained fiscal climate.
Questions from among the crowd of almost 100 noted how common data standards have produced significant results in the private sector, foreign governments, and among state-level actors.
Hudson Hollister, the Data Transparency Coalition's Executive Director, concluded the breakfast with the announcement of a DATA Act Summit that will be held in April. The summit will connect legislative and executive branch leaders with open data innovators who are ready to provide the capacity for reform.
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White House Plan Cedes Leadership on Spending Data Transparency
The Obama administration reaffirmed many of its existing goals for government transparency Friday in its second National Action Plan for Open Government. But the plan, released under the auspices of the international Open Government Partnership founded two years ago, lacks specifics on the transparency of federal spending data.
The federal government's spending is reported in fragmented fashion to multiple entities: account balances and payment requests go to the Treasury Department, budget actions go to the White House, grant summaries go to the Commerce Department, and procurement details go to the General Services Administration. To provide full transparency to citizens, an enterprise-wide view to appropriators in Congress, or analytics-ready data to program managers and inspectors general, all of these disconnected reporting streams must be brought together for combined views, searches, and analyses. The only way to combine them without completely changing federal financial, assistance, and procurement management is through the implementation of government-wide data standards. The federal government must deploy consistent identifiers and formats across the entire disconnected system--and then publish the whole corpus online.
The National Action Plan promises that "the U.S. Government will make Federal spending data more easily available in open and machine-readable formats" (page 9), but it contains none of the specific commitments necessary for government-wide standardization and publication. First, no entity has the authority to adopt data standards covering spending reports to Treasury, the White House, Commerce, and the GSA. The National Action Plan does not address thaleadership vacuum.
Second, the National Action Plan promises that the Government Accountability and Transparency Board (GATB), an advisory body President Obama created via executive order in June 2011, will "continue to provide strategic direction to the federal government on ways to increase Federal spending transparency and to detect waste, fraud, or abuse" (page 9). But the GATB's most important recommendations, which it issued in December 2011, have never been implemented: a government-wide accountability framework for grants and contracts, consolidated grant and contract data collection, and a universal award identification system. The GATB's strategic direction is not useful unless followed.
Third, though the National Action Plan promises that the White House will advocate for reform legislation in at least two other areas, it ignores the need for President Obama to engage with Congress to pursue federal spending transparency legislation. The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act), which directs the Treasury Department to create government-wide data standards for spending and publish all spending data in one place, was passed by the House on Nov. 18, 388 votes to 1. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee had approved similar legislation unanimously two weeks earlier. Gene Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office, endorsed the DATA Act last July and testified, "Without legislation ... [spending transparency] won't happen." But the White House has remained silent on the DATA Act (and administration officials opposed a previous version, leading to criticism by the Washington Post's Dana Milbank and others). The National Action Plan lacks any mention of the DATA Act or a commitment to work with Congress on spending transparency.
In a new poll released this week by Public Notice, nearly eight in ten Americans support "legislation that would require the federal government to put all of its spending records online." Support was particularly strong among young voters (85%) and relatively consistent across political affiliations. These results reaffirm the presence of widespread, bipartisan backing for the DATA Act and real federal spending transparency.
None of the National Action Plan's other spending-related commitments -- joining a global fiscal transparency network, seeking public input on existing data publication, publishing unspecified new data sets -- promise more than incremental change. The White House has ceded leadership on spending transparency to Congress, the agencies, nonprofit advocates, and the private sector.
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StreamLink Software Joins the Coalition
StreamLink Software has joined the Data Transparency Coalition as a Regular Member. As a leading provider of process management tools for the public and nonprofit sectors, StreamLink's tech-sector perspective will add important insight to the Coalition's agenda for open data reform.
"StreamLink Software is pioneering new solutions that use open data to streamline compliance mandates for grantees and other entities that are required to submit government reports" said Hudson Hollister, Executive Director of the Data Transparency Coalition. "We're thrilled to welcome StreamLink’s leadership in support of our shared vision to achieve much-needed data transparency reforms like the DATA Act."
The announcement comes on the heels of the DATA Act's passage through the U.S. House of Representatives on November 18. The enactment of the DATA Act, which will transform the federal government's spending information from disconnected documents into open data, is the Coalition's primary legislative goal. An amended version of the bill’s companion legislation was given unanimous approval by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) in early November. The HSGAC is currently evaluating further revisions to the Senate bill.
StreamLink Software recently released a report exploring the future of grant reporting. The whitepaper explains how grant management will be transformed in coming years, particularly by the passage of key legislation like the DATA Act.
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