GAO Recommends Stronger Oversight for Agency Data Asset Inventories

Key Takeaways:

• While CFO Act agencies complied with the OPEN Government Data Act’s requirement to publish open data assets and publicly display data inventories, the GAO was unable to confirm agency continuance in effectively updating those inventories.
• The lack of oversight for public data assets and data inventories reveals inaccurate, missing, and incomplete data on federal dashboards and agency websites.
• GAO recommends OMB act immediately to publish guidance outlining specifications for agency data inventories and published data sets, and continually report on agency progress moving forward.

In 2019, the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (Evidence Act) became law directing agencies to strengthen data management and data access functions leading to organized and data-based decision-making activities. Under Title II of the Evidence Act, the Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary Government Data Act of 2018 (OPEN Government Data Act) requires CFO Act agencies to publish information in open, machine-readable and non-proprietary formats. The legislation also directs agencies to lists the published data sets in comprehensive data inventories.

For its part, the GAO investigated agency progress in the data inventories outlined by the OPEN Government Data Act. Among the GAO’s findings, agencies complied with displaying data inventories on their websites. Nonetheless, the watchdog agency was unable to conclude sufficient maintenance and accountability of the inventories.

Specifically, the GAO found that GSA complied with the legislation’s requirement to provide and maintain a point of entry to share data assets with the public, either to publish data assets or provide data links to the available data. GAO also found that agencies publicly posted the machine-readable data assets and comprehensive data inventory listing in a variety of locations:

• Six agencies published their data listings through Data.gov
• Nine agencies hosted searchable data inventories on their own websites
• Nine agencies provided lists of data and downloadable Excel files on their websites, yet did not have search or filter capabilities for that data

However, GAO found that OMB did not issue specific guidance on implementing and maintaining these data inventories. The lack of oversight for the data inventories causes data quality challenges to arise in determining the extent that agencies are regularly updating their inventories, or that have working links to data inventories. Consequently, the GAO found inaccurate data labeling between the metrics listed on GSA’s dashboard do not match those listed for public datasets on the agency’s website. Additionally, the GAO found agencies with incomplete or missing data and the dashboard displaying no or partial metrics for a handful of the CFO Act agencies as of March 2020.

As a result, GAO is providing three recommendations to OMB to drive development of cohesive and reliable inventories of data assets, prioritize data assets for publication and guidelines on which data should be made public. In particular, GAO recommends:

• OMB comply with its statutory requirement to issue implementation guidance to agencies to develop and maintain comprehensive data inventories.
• OMB comply with the statutory requirement to electronically publish a report on agencies’ performance and compliance with the OPEN Government Data Act.
• OMB, in collaboration with GSA, establish policy to ensure the routine identification and correction of errors in electronically published performance information.