HOW TO CUT PAPERWORK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70-00211R001000410011-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 76
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 16, 2014
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: October 6, 1966
• Content Type: REPORT

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Union Calendar No, 975
89th Congress, 2d Session
House Report No. 2197
HOW TO CUT PAPERWORK
COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND
CIVIL SERVICE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
EIGHTY-NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
OCTOBER 1966
OCTOBER 6, 1966.?Committed to the Committee of the Whole House
on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
69-732 WASHINGTON 19.66
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COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE
TOM MURRAY, Tennessee, Chairman
JAMES H. MORRISON, Louisiana ROBERT I. CORBETT, Pennsylvania
THADDEUS J. DULSK1, New York H. R. GROSS, Iowa
DAVID N. HENDERSON, North Carolina GLENN CUNNINGHAM, Nebraska
ARNOLD OLSEN, Montana EDWARD J. DERWINSKI, Illinois
MORRIS K. UDALL, Arizona ROBERT F. ELLSWORTH, Kansas
DOMINICK V. DANIELS, New Jersey ALBERT W. JOHNSON, Pennsylvania
LINDLEY BECKWORTH, Texas JOHN H. BUCHANAN, JR., Alabama
ROBERT N. C. NIX, Pennsylvania JAMES T. BROYHILLINorth Carolina
JOE R. POOL, Texas
WILLIAM J. GREEN, Pennsylvania
SPARK M. MATSUNA GA, Hawaii
PAUL J. KREBS, New Jersey
RAYMOND F. CLEVENGER, Michigan
JAMES M. HANLEY, New York
JOHN V. TUNNEY, California
CHARLES H. WILSON, California
JEROME R. WALDIE, California
CHARLES E. JOHNSON, Staff Director
B. BENTON BRAY, Associate Staff Dirtctor
JOHN H. MARTINY, CCURSel
WILLIAM A. IRVINE, Assistant Staff Director
THEODORE J. KAZY, Senior Staff Assistant
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CENSUS AND STATISTICS
ROBERT N. C. NIX, Pennsylvania, Chairman
ARNOLD OLSEN, Montana
MORRIS K. UDALL, Arizona
JOE R. POOL, Texas
PAUL J. KREBS, New Jersey
JOHN V. TUNNEY, California
JOHN 11. BUCHANAN, JR., Alabama
H. R. GROSS, Iowa
EDWARD J. DERWINSKI, Illinois
Ex Officio Voting Members
TOM MURRAY, Tennessee ROBERT J. CORBETT, Pennsylvania
CARLYLE F. VAN AREN, Subcommittee Staff Director
THOMAS R. KENNEDY, Subcommittee Counsel
II
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LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,
Washington, D.C., October 6, 1966.
HOD. JOHN W. MCCORMACK,
The Speaker,
House of Representatibes, Washington, D.C.
? DEAR MR. SPEAKER: At the direction of the Committee On Post
Office and Civil Service, I am transmitting herewith a report prepared
by our Subcommittee on Census and Statistics and unanimously
approved by the full committee at its meeting today for printing as a
House report.
? The report is called "How To Cut Paperwork." In addition to
the purpose conveyed by. the title, the report describes activities of
the National Archives and Records Service (NARS) of the General
Services Administration and the work done by NARS and other
Federal agencies to cut Federal Government paperwork. It is one
of a series of reports on this subject by the Committee on Post Office
and Civil Service.
The committee members earnestly hope the report will result in
saving Federal and private funds by improving paperwork practices.
With best wishes, I am,
Sincerely yours,
."1
L??? ?L
Tom MURRAY, Chairman.
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LETTER OF SUBMITTAL
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CENSUS AND STATISTICS,
COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,
October 6, 1966.
HOD. TOM MURRAY,
Chairman, Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, House of Repre-
sentatives, Washington, D.C.
DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: I am attaching a report of the Subcommittee
on Census and Statistics for the approval of the Committee on Post
Office and Civil Service. The title is "How To Cut Paperwork."
The report describes activities of the National Archives and Records
Service (NARS), an agency of the General Services Administration.
The authority for the report is House Resolution No. 245, 89th Con-
gress, 1st session, passed March 29, 1965. The resolution assigns
congressional responsibility for the National Archives to our committee.
While the authority has existed for some time, and while the Sub-
committee on Census and Statistics works closely with the National
Archives and Records Service, this is the first report of NARS' func-
tions to be undertaken by us. The purposes of the report at this time
are: (1) to continue efforts to reduce the billions of dollars spent
annually for Federal Government paperwork; (2) to discuss the work
of NARS and other agencies and thereby point out methods of cutting
paperwork; and (3) to fulfill the committee's responsibility for the
activities of the National Archives.
The committee members believe that all too frequently the good work
of records preservation done by National Archives may be more com-
monly recognized and understood than the strenuous efforts of NARS
to reduce Federal Government paperwork. The members are hopeful
that this report will provide a fuller understanding of NARS work and
at the same time further stimulate Federal paperwork reductions by
department and agency heads with consequent significant financial
savings.
The subcommittee gratefully acknowledges the cooperation and
assistance of the General Services Administration, the National
Archives and Records Service and staff, and each agency that has
improved paperwork practices.
Cordially,
ROBERT N. C. Nix, Chairman.
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CONTENTS
Page
Chapter I. Highlights 1
The processes 1
The records 2
The new influences 2
The success stories 3
What needs to be done 3
Summary of recommendations 3
Background 4
II. The Influences of Our Times. 7
The computer 7
Rapid-copying equipment 7
Size of organization 8
Upward spiraling of paperwork costs 8
Risk a little; save a lot 9
III. The Meaning of Paperwork Management 10
What is in a name? 10
Total systems concept 10
Paperwork management field of activity 11
IV. How the General Services Administration, Through the
National Archives and Records Service, Provides Paper-
work and Records Management 13
Office of Records Management 13
Office of Federal Records Centers 15
V. Paperwork Technology 18
Efficiency through better forms 18
The drive for better letters 19
Guiding the man on the job (directives) 20
Better information for decisionmakers (reporting) _ _ _ _ 22
Root of the records problem: Source data 23
Speeding mail to action desks 24
Protecting vital records 25
Information retrieval 26
Filing: Everybody is in the act 29
Managing records disposition 30
Workshops: The educational approach that also pro-
duces action 30
VI. How Federal Agencies Can Organize for Paperwork Man-
agement 32
Agency responsibility under the Federal Records Act 32
Further definition of paperwork management 32
Location of paperwork in agency operations 33
Barriers to better paperwork management accom-
plishments 33
VII. The Future 36
A changing world 36
Computers 36
Research: Key to the future 38
VIII. Recommendations 43
Basis 43
Recommendations 43
vu
,t ?
41, R
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APPENDIX A. Partial List of Paperwork Improvements Made by Page
Federal Agencies 49
B. Examples of Benefits to Federal Agencies From Corre-
spondence Workshops 59
C. Paperwork Services Which Can Be Used To Provide
Heads of Agencies With Continuous Oversight of
Performance 65
D. National Archives and, Records) Service Organization
Chart 68
E. The President's September. 22, 1966, memorandum
calling for reduction of Federal Government paper-
work 69
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Union Calendar No. 975
89TH CONGRESS t HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES S REPORT
2d Session f No. 2197
HOW TO CUT PAPERWORK
OCTOBER 6, 1966.?Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State
of the Union and ordered to be printed
Mr. MURRAY, from the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service,
submitted the following
REPORT
Ix
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`Z66'1?77). 2,z 6
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CHAPTER I. HIGHLIGHTS
Government today is big business to a degree scarcely dreamed of
by our Founding Fathers. It is so big that little of it is conducted on
a face-to-face basis. Almost all of it is conducted by systems of paper
communications, transaction forms, reports, instructions' and other
record-making and record-using techniques. A large part of the time
of all employees of the Federal Government is spent in the processes?
of paperwork. The cost is staggering, $8 billion.
Yet no Federal agency can lay claim really to managing its paper-
work.
What of the problems and promise of paperwork? The highlights
below, discussed in the report, tell the story.
THE PROCESSES
? It takes 360,000 different forms, prepared in 15 billion copies to
keep the wheels of government turning. It is a rare procedure which
does not require the use of at least one form. (See p. 18.)
? Almost three-fourths of all Federal records are forms, and half of
all Federal reports are forms. (See p. 18.)
? In fiscal year 1966, the Federal Government is believed to have
spent over $53 million to print its forms. In addition, tests indicate
that 20 times as much is spent on the clerical effort of using them.
(See p. 18.)
? The billion letters produced annually in the Federal Government
cost approximately $1.5 billion. They vary from an average of 25
cents for a form letter to an average cost of $2.75 for an individually
typed letter. (See P. 19.)
? $100?$200 million could be saved by applying more efficient
correspondence methods and techniques. (See p. 20.)
? President Franklin D. Roosevelt received 140,000 letters a year.
President Kennedy received 307,312. The mail to the President
has how increased so much that President Johnson received 825,750
letters last year. (See p. 20.)
? It was estimated, in 1963, that directives cost the Federal Gov-
ernment $400 million for 1 million pages a year. There are now over
2.6 million pages a year. (See p. 20.)
? Reporting is an area of paperwork in which the Government
presently invests approximately $1 billion a year. This cost breaks
down to $550 million annually for routine management reporting,
$250 million on special reports, and the balance in other reports
required. (See p. 22.)
? Paperwork costs are not irreducible; they can be cut substantially.
Agreement on this principle is the beginning of paperwork improve-
ment. (See p. 34.)
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2 HOW TO CUT PAPERWORK
THE RECORDS
? Making four copies isn't really the costly thing. It's keeping
them that increases the expense. (See p. 30.)
? Records holdings now total more than 25 million cubic feet.
Throwing away a page a second of these records it would take 2,000
years to discard them all. (See p. 16.)
? Although the situation is better than it was 15 years ago, there are
still (a) too many records?nearly one-fourth of the total volume?
designated by the agencies as permanent, (b) too many permanent
records scattered and intermixed with temporary records, and (c) too
many temporary records being kept beyond their usefulness. (See
p. 15.)
? In 1955, the average life of a Federal record was 13 years. In
1966 the average life of nonpermanent records dropped to 9 years.
(See p. 15.)
? A target of 2 to 3 percent permanent records is obtainable through
archival appraisal. (See p. 15.)
? Though annual records creation has greatly increased through the
years, disposal and housing techniques have improved, resulting in a
reduction of square feet of space used. (See p. 16.)
? Federal Records Centers are big money savers. The cost of
Federal Records Center space is 21 cents per cubic foot of records; the
cost of office space is $3.85 per cubic foot of records. The Federal
Records Center program savings, plus the avoidance of expenditures
which would otherwise have been incurred, may reasonably be esti-
mated at $250 million for the 1951-66 period. (See p. 17.)
THE NEW INFLUENCES
? Automation brings with it new paperwork costs?the costs
required to transform data from record language to machine language.
(See p. 37.)
? It costs $550 million a year to prepare "input" to "feed" the
machines. (See p. 38.)
? Agencies find .that they spend $2 and $3 per page to prepare it
for the machine (code, punch, verify, control, etc.). At that rate,
$550 million would pay for automating less than 100,000 cubic feet of
the 4.6 million cubic feet of records now being produced annually (i.e.,
220 million pages of 10 billion pages produced annually). (See p. 38.)
? A computer can make a stack of records 20 feet high each day.
Working on full weekly 7-day shifts (less five holidays) this stack
could be 1.3 miles high in a year. This is one computer. The
Federal Government has 2,600 computers. (See p. 7.)
? Next to the computer as a force of paperwork change has been the
rapid-copying machine. One copy in 10 is now rapid copy. (See
P. 7.)
? In a growing organization, a records program must run very fast
to stand still. (See p. 8.)
? File stations have increased in number over four times since 1951.
There are 255,000 employees in the Federal Government who spend a
majority of their time filing records. This is a greater number than
the troops we have in Germany. Even so, time from primary tasks
is taken for filing. (See pp. 7 and 29.)
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3
? Many persons feel that insistence on accounting for every penny
at several different levels in several different ways has driven organiza-
tions down a long paperwork road. This situation is changing. (See
p. 9.)
THE SUCCESS STORIES
? Moratorium on purchase of new filing cabinets saved over $3
million. (See p. 17.)
? Technical assistance by the National Archives and Records
Service (General Services Administration) to Federal agencies re-
suited in $10.8 million savings in 1966. (See p. 15.)
? Forty outstanding Federal employees have been honored for
savings in paperwork in their agencies totaling over $200 million.
(See p. 49.)
o Specific projects in agencies have shown the possibilities?a
selection:
Navy and Marine Corps eliminated 18,402 directives.
U.S. Maritime Administration helped industry to eliminate
400 types of bills of lading ($8 million savings to shippers).
Agriculture eliminated 318 reports saving $630,296.
Federal Aviation Agency reduced directives files by 5.5 million
pages (held by 45,000 employees).
Veterans' Administration strea,mlined mail handling, saving
$460,000.
Additional specific projects are cited in subsequent pages.
WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE
Obviously there is real promise in utilizing the techniques of paper-
work management. This is true especially if the techniques are
applied from a total systems point of view. Some things have been
done but much more is needed.
The importance of paperwork and records in our day is best under-
stood when viewed in perspective. Dr. Wayne C. Grover recently
retired as Archivist of the United States passed along a perceptive
observation.
He stated that public records have a unique importance for govern-
ments. In earlier centuries they were used mainly to document the
obligations of citizens to their governments. With the rise of demo-
cratic governments, however, it became even more important to record
the obligations of a government to its people.
To do an adequate job, in the depth that paperwork management
deserves, there follows a summary of the chapter devoted to the
committee's recommendations.
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS 1
? A professional staff fully trained and experienced in paperwork
mangement should be available to the head of each Federal agency.
? Paperwork management should be used as a method of providing
continuous oversight of agency performance.
? Heads of agencies should require a regular recurring review, on a
systems basis, of all of their major paperwork pipelines with a view to
See p. 43 for recommendations.
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4 HOW TO CUT PAPERWORK
00 eliminating delays, (b) substantially reducing effort and (e) pro-
viding better service to the public.
? Heads of agencies should aggressively 'maintain a proper climate
of teamwork and cooperation between paperwork analysts, on the one
hand, and activities they serve, on the other.
? All agencies should improve the paperwork processes used to pro-
vide key data to management.
? Fewer but better records should be produced by Federal agencies.
The burden of paperwork imposed on citizens by the 'Federal
Government should be greatly reduced.
? Better interagency paperwork processes should be developed as a
Government-wide project, beginning immediately.
? Paperwork implications of legislation should be reviewed by all
agencies, so that appropriate remedies can be made by the Congress.
? Special emphasis should be given to applying source data automa-
tion methods, aimed at reducing the cost of using computers.
? Greater- support 2 should be given to the National Archives and
Records Service management program.
? Professional training and refresher courses should be established,
as part of the civil service training and career development programs,
to assure a high leVel of competence among paperwork analysts.
? A broad-gaged, organized program of research into all fields of
paperwork practices and systems should be authorized and financed
during the coming fiscal year. A Federal center for research in paper-
work should be considered.
? Productivity standards for clerical employees should be developed
without delay, with first priority of emphasis being given to clerical
processes related to the new computer technology.
BACKGROUND
Paperwork management, as a management technology, began
slowly.. It was largely an outgrowth of the unrelenting demands in
Government during and following World War II and 'Korea. This
experience found Official expression in the Federal Records Act (44
U.S.C. 391-396), passed unanimously by the House and the Senate
and approved by President Truman on September 5, 1950. This act
was the first Federal statute to give legal authority for a comprehensive
paperwork management program.. Unlike prior laws relating to
records, the act of 1950does not concern itself solely with the archival
aspects of records administration. It calls for management controls
on the creation and maintenance of records, as well as on their retire-
ment and disposition. Aimed at economy and efficiency in Federal
paperwork and recordkeeping practices, the 1950 law leaves no doubt
as to the responsibility for charting a course of action and for seeing
that it is followed.
Legislative steps
The need for a comprehensive paperwork management program
resulting in the Records Act of 1950, had long been recognized. In-
vestigations undertaken by the National Archives in the midthirties
revealed chaotic recordkeeping practices widespread throughout the
2 See committee recommendation, p. 106 of previous report, the "Federal Paperwork Jungle," dated
Feb. 18, 1965.
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Federal agencies. Duplicate files were multiplying from records
created without restraint, while most agencies made little effort to
determine actual need or appropriate filing methods. Although the
Records Disposal Act of 1943 (44 U.S.C. 366) made possible the
orderly retirement of records, it imposed no requirements on agencies
with respect to controlling nonessential papers and improving filing
methods; and the vast quantities of transient ill-kept files were making
it increasingly difficult for the Archives to identify documents worthy
of preservation.
With the advent of World War II and the establishment of the
emergency agencies, the damaging effects of mismanaged files were
further aggravated. The cost of filing space and equipment required
for the accelerated records growth was now a major Federal expendi-
ture, and the excessive recordkeeping costs were certain to increase
unless effective measures were taken to get at the root of the problem.
Executive Order 9784, issued September 25, 1946, recognized the
state of files by requiring all agencies to conduct "active continuing
programs for the effective management and disposition of records."
But this order fell far short of a solution. Indeed, many agencies
gave it token compliance, according to the first Hoover Commission.
There was still no definitive role of staff responsibility in paperwork
management; questions were yet unresolved as to central guidance
for the program; the respective responsibilities of staff and operating
agencies had not been delineated; and no decision had been reached
on the best means of providing low-cost storage for inactive records
not needed for permanent preservation.
When the first Hoover Commission on Reorganization of the Ex-
ecutive Branch of the Government was established in 1948, Federal
records holdings totaled 183 million cubic feet, and the Government
was spending more than a billion dollars a year on recordmaking and
recordkeeping. Recognizing the possibilities of achieving significant
savings in this costly activity, the Commission set one of its 24 task
forces to a study of the problem. The task force report published
in January 1949 made an impressive case for records management.
Citing numerous statistics in support of the needlessly high cost of
records, the causes of this condition, and the burden on the American
taxpayer, the task force recommended a Federal Records Manage-
ment Act that would give comprehensive legal authority for the
creation, preservation, management, and disposal of the records of
the U.S. Government.
The evidence spoke for itself; and action came rapidly and decisively.
Following the Hoover Commission's recommendations, several bills
were introduced in both Houses of Congress in the spring of 1949.
From these bills emerged the Federal Records Act of 1950 with a
unanimous congressional approval that bode well for its success.
The second. Hoover Commission submitted in 1955 a paperwork
management report that described the successes and shortcomings
of the agencies and GSA in meeting their responsibilities under the
Federal Records Act. The report emphasized the need for action
in the broader paperwork field.
Action taken
Under the 1950 law, central staff responsibility for the records
program is vested in the General Services Administration which is
charged with developing and improving standards, procedures and
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CUT PAPERWORK
techniques with respect to the creation of records; the organization
and maintenance of current records; and the disposition of records
no longer needed for current operations. To the General Services
Administration is also assigned the responsibility for establishing
and operating Federal records centers as well as the National Archives,
and for evaluating the effectiveness with which agencies manage
their records.
Responsibility for the paperwork management program was assigned
to the National Archives and Records Service (NARS) after can-
vassing the possibilities of establishing a separate agency or a separate
service within GSA.
NARS began to establish Federal records centers, to make recon-
naissance surveys of Government practices, and to monitor contracts
awarded to management engineering firms. Because of the constant
demands of Federal agencies, and at the informal urging of the
Congress, NARS also instituted a program of direct technical assist-
ance comprising surveys, audits, and technical workshops.
But the vesting of an overview staff responsibility for records
management in? the Administrator of the General Services Adminis-
tration does not relieve other agencies of any records management
duties. On the contrary, the law places squarely upon the head of
each agency the direct obligation to take an active part in bringing
about efficient records management (or "paperwork management" as
it has become known due to the emphasis on "creation") by:
1. Adequately and properly documenting its organization, func-
tions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions.
2. Maintaining a continuing program to achieve efficiency and
economy through controls over the creation, maintenance, use,
disposal, and retirement of its records.
3. Preserving records of lasting value; and protecting. all official
records against loss, destruction, and unlawful removal.
In reviewing the provisions of the Federal Records Act of 1950,
this committee has been continually impressed by the foresight of
the law. In effect, the Federal ?Records Act is a challenge to all
Federal agency heads to control the paper explosion that threatens to
engulf governmental information systems.
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CHAPTER IL THE INFLUENCES OF OUR TIMES
Since 1955 the Federal paperwork picture has been subjected to
a number of influences that have changed the very meaning of all
antipaperwork programs in the United States, in the Government
and out.
THE COMPUTER
The greatest producer of paperwork change is the computer.?In the
period of time taken by a conventional typewriter to produce a stack of
papers 20 feet high, a large computer will produce a stack 7,200 feet
high. Thus, by sheer power and speed, computers are adding to
records volume.
For example, machinable forms as the input documents to computers
create records at a ratio of 100 to 1 faster than typing separate forms
previously used. Also, in the field of records disposal, magnetic
tapes present new problems and master tapes require new retention
solutions.
On the other hand, there are hopes of paperwork savings as reports
become automated. Integration of information is making people
talk about "information management" as a new term to supersede
"reports management."
Automation is affecting directives favorably in that the indexes to
directives are being put on computers for classification and retrieval.
Files are being miniaturized and coded in machine language.
Some correspondence is being automated. Already much mail
handling is being done by this means. However, the benefits of
automation have scarcely been seen. Experts now feel that approxi-
mately 85 percent of all work done in offices can and probably will be
automated.
Understanding and control of this new paperwork influence is
urgent. Computers should be a means of reducing paperwork and
not a cause of aggravating the problem.
RAPID-COPYING EQUIPMENT
Next to the computer as a force of paperwork change has been rapid-
copying equipment.?Once documents are made easily, cheaply, and
quickly, they are bound to multiply. Organization after organiza-
tion has been aghast at the number of copies their copying equipment
turns out. One copy in ten is now "rapid copy."
Unfortunately, most of the copies go into the files. This has
caused a filing revolution. In 1951 the National Archives and Records
Service made a files study of GSA. There were about 150 file stations.
Today there are over 450. In 1952 NARS made a files study of the
State Department. Then there were over 200 file stations. Today
there are over 1,000. Anyone who wants to in most organizations
can today start a file. Everyone with a secretary has a file. The
duplication of information among these files is phenomenal.
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Twenty years ago most files were maintained by full-time file clerks.
Today many files are kept on a part-time basis by secretaries, stenog-
raphers, lab assistants, accountants, aids, and the like. Recordkeep-
ing is beginning to take time needed in other jobs. It is quite possible
that the techniques of automated data retrieval and wider use of data
systems will help to reestablish the balance. This proliferation of
files makes the records manager's job trebly difficult. Standardization
of subject categories is very hard to achieve, and disposal is made
more difficult (actually, what to keep is made more difficult, and an
integrated network of filing stations is almost impossible).
SIZE OF ORGANIZATION
Another force of paperwork change is the growing size of organiza-
tions.?The small organization doesn't need a full-time records
manager. No one seems to have an exact notion at what point in
size it pays an organization to manage its records with full-time em-
ployees. Yet organizational size affects records volume more than
any other environmental factor.
It is size that determines length of communication lines?lines that
give an organization its sometimes almost endless chains of command.
The organization that doubles in size will more than double its records.
Great masses of records have forced most large organizations to start
records programs. In a growing organization, a records program must
run very fast to stand still. It is size, too, that requires more special-
ization within the paperwork management program.
Size especially affects the subject categories of a filing system. A
small file can get along with a handful of primaries and secondaries.
Let the file grow and at once more secondary headings have to be
supplied and tertiaries begin to grow like wild flowers. Multiply this
by 100 file stations and a situation develops that few records managers
can cope with.
UPWARD SPIRALING OF PAPERWORK COSTS
Another factor of paperwork change is the spiraling upward of paper-
work costs.?This is partly due to the increase of reports and direc-
tives, but whatever the cause, rising costs disturb management.
When management get sufficiently disturbed, something happens?
like having a paperwork management program where none existed
before; like having one special study after another being made.
The Nation's clerical employees have grown in number about five
times faster than the labor force as a whole. In 1930, 8 percent of the
laboring force was clerical. In 1965, 35 years later, it was 16 per-
cent. Another doubling in another 35 years, management cannot
afford.
The productivity of the clerical element is hard to compute. In-
creasingly, productivity studies are being undertaken to determine
how productivity can be measured. Undoubtedly, the result of these
studies will start new trends in the use of systems and equipment.
Each factory worker was immersed in an $8,000 equipment invest-
ment in 1900. By 1960, each was surrounded by a $64,000 equipment.
This addition of new and specialized equipment, and the systems which
go with the new machines, are the principal reasons for the spectacular
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increase in factory worker productivity. The office worker had about
a $300 equipment investment in 1900. By 1960, this had only in-
creased to about $800, mostly in the last 10 years as a result of the
computers. As that investment? gets greater undoubtedly produc-
tivity will get greater. Also new systems will be needed.
RISE A LITTLE; SAVE A LOT
Another singular force of paperwork change is the realization that
if an organization will take the risk, much paperwork can be avoided.?
Here, industry seems more daring than Government. In general, or-
ganizations do not need to do so much vouchering, inventorying, or
receipting. Transactions can be sampled, or at least brought under
systematic controls. (One of the oldest and best known of sys-
tematic controls was the introduction of the cash register. Codes
and running totals could substitute for individual item accounts.)
Many persons feel the need to protect property and funds has driven
organizations down a long paperwork road by an insistence on ac-
counting for every penny at several different levels in several different
ways.
A willingness to take seemingly greater risks lies behind dispensing
with retaining invbiees. It lies behind the sending of blank checks
with orders. It lies behind the dispensing with inventory c-cintrol on
a detailed paperwOrk basis. It lies behind dispensing with credit
checks. It lies behind nonauditing of transactions of less than $5?
except for certain sampling and systematic safeguards.
Several of the Nation's major domestic airline carriers are currently
making settlements of interline passenger revenue payments based
entirely on estimates made from sample information.
There are probably as many as 100 projects of this risk-taking
nature now going on in the United1States, measuring the cost of con-
trol versus the cost of undetected or unresolved errors. The secret
often lies in the fact that good systems provide new and less expensive
methods of control. A control that costs as much or more than the
situation controlled (such is an audit of a $1 account at an audit cost of
$5 to $10) is evidence of poor paperwork systems and unimaginative
management.
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CHAPTER III. THE MEANING OF PAPERWORK
MANAGEMENT
WHAT IS IN A NAME?
The concept of the Federal paperwork management program begins
with the very word "records" itself. The definition of this word,
originating in the Records Disposal Act of 1943 and carried forward
in the 1950 law, can leave no doubt that it includes all documentary
material in every agency of the executive branch of the Government:
* * * all books, papers, maps, photographs, or other docu-
mentary materials, regardless of physical form or character-
istics, made or received by any agency of the U.S. Govern-
ment in pursuance of Federal law or in connection with the
transaction of public business and preserved or appropriated
for preservation by that agency or its legitimate successor as
evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions,
procedures, operations, or other activities of the Government
or because of the information value contained therein * * *.
This all-inclusive language includes nonconventional files as well as
conventional files, extending stewardship for records to data recorded
by electronic processes scarcely heard of when the term was defined.
With the advancement of computer technology have come such other
terms as "management information systems, data control, source
data automation and information distribution systems," all suggesting
a possible distinction between records and data and/or information.
Although such distinctions technically possess some validity, they are
meaningless in the broad concept of paperwork. For records, as
defined by law, are everything that contain data or information of
any kind and in any form; and it is within this broad meaning that
the act of 1950 authorizes a management program. Management
programs are all parts of a whole. The terms: "Paperwork manage-
ment," or "Records management," or "Records administration" have
been useful for focusing attention on certain types of techniques.
Nevertheless, they are all part of management analysis. There are
no neat compartments in the field of office systems. There should
be only a general unity.
TOTAL SYSTEMS CONCEPT
No Federal agency manages its total paperwork. Very few even
attempt to, judging by the value they place on systems work in the
organization, or the way that systems effort is organized. Yet, led
by such internationally known authorities as Peter Drucker, heads of
Government agencies are being urged to turn to a "total systems
concept."
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Stated in its simplest form, the "total systems concept" has been
characterized under the following five guidelines by the National
Archives and Records Service:
1. Substantive program needs should be analyzed first.?The analysis
includes: Identification of clients, objectives in relation to the clients,
measures of progress, and development of simple but timely proce-
dural steps.
2. Key data for decision should be a natural output of systems.?A few
data on a consistent base, and which can be correlated in a number of
ways, are the most useful.
3. Relate accomplishment to people and people to reasonable objec-
tives.?Systems which keep people aware of their contributions to
managerial goals and their part in the specific contributions are key-
stones to good management.
4. Establish norms of cost and effort.?Even the most sophisticated
of professional activities can operate in a manner which relates to
norms.
5. Provide adequate service support and specialized technical assistance
to substantive programs.?A great program officer is one who can use
the supporting and specialized assistance available. A good organi-
zation is prepared to give the right support and right assistance at the
right time. A thorough knowledge of the needs of the substantive
program makes it possible to supply effective support.
Although the systems approach should control an agency's entrance
into its paperwork problems, actually systems work is a major disci-
pline like the law, or medicine. When a person has a serious infection
in a foot, he is apt to want a foot specialist rather than a doctor general-
ist. When a person is engaged in a patent lawsuit, he is apt to want
a patent specialist rather than a lawyer generalist. So it often is
with that portion of the systems area, generally when one has a paper-
work problem, he needs a paperwork expert.
PAPERWORK MANAGEMENT FIELD OF ACTIVTIY
Paperwork management, as defined by the National Archives and
Records Service, and is understood generally in government, is com-
prised of a number of techniques. These techniques are applied from
the point of view of "total systems" To a considerable degree em-
ployees need to be told for repetitive work what to do and how to
do it; these links between plans and actions are maintained through
information going downward as instructions, therefore requiring some
kind of directives management. In order to process paperwork eco-
nomically it is necessary to understand how procedures have a form
as their backbone; forms management analyzes this requirement as
do techniques for establishing paperwork procedures. Most supervi-
sors and department heads manage their responsibilities in part from
the information coming upward through the organization as reports;
a program that examines the creation and distribution of these reports
is called reports management. Sending and receiving communica-
tions require effective coordination with mail rooms to secure prompt
action. This is accomplished by a program of mail management.
Keeping an eye on le ter-writing costs, and the quality of letters, calls
for correspondence management.
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12 HOW TO CUT PAPERWORK
Eventually forms, correspondence, reports, and instructions must
be filed in such places as cabinets, shelves, or on film. To prevent
dispersal of the key bits of information in the files and to permit easy
access to it, a program of files management must be followed. In the
event of emergency situations, only a small section of these records
is necessary to carry on the work of the organization; identifying and
protecting these basic records is part of files management.
As time passes, the information in the records has less and less
administrative referral value. Hence, it is desirable to retire noncur-
rent records from high-cost office space and equipment to low-cost
facilities. More likely the records can be destroyed quickly if their
value has been put in writing; this program is called records disposi-
tion.
All Federal agencies would do well to subscribe to this' definition,
within its systems context and management framework.
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CHAPTER IV. HOW THE GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRA-
TION THROUGH THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS
SERVICE PROVIDES PAPERWORK AND RECORDS MAN-
AGEMENT
The passage of the Records Act of 1950 has involved the General
Services Administration through its National Archives and Records
Service in central staff direction of a program for managing the crea-
tion, maintenance, and disposition of records holdings now totaling
more than 25 million cubic feet. The NARS activity is carried out
through two principal components of organization:
A. The Office of Records Management concerned with standards,
automation, technical assistance to Federal agencies in all phases of
paperwork and records management, and the evaluation of the effec-
tiveness of the agency records programs, and
B. The Office of Federal Records Centers concerned with the
management of inactive records.
The GSA organization for carrying out its central staff responsibility
in paperwork management is graphically depicted in the organization
chart of NARS in appendix D.
OFFICE OF RECORDS MANAGEMENT
The NARS Office of Records Management promotes three pro-
grams. The objectives are to bring about fewer delays, better quality,
and less cost in Government recordkeeping and recordmaking.
Standards and guidelines
NARS develops and publishes guidelines for use by Federal agencies.
They are promulgated through regulations, through educational hand-
books, and through workshops on specific paperwork management
subjects.
The regulations are aimed at top management to demonstrate the
value of paperwork systems as a management resource to Federal
agencies.
The handbooks are most popular with management analysts and
other staff personnel, to help them keep pace with the rapidly develop-
ing technology. The workshops are designed for supervisors, to help
them improve their day-to-day working competence.
During the last 5 years the standards program has been very pro-
ductive. Similarly, the workshops have been demonstrable money
savers. This is because NARS insists that the "price of admission"
for each participant is that he will undertake an improvement project
when he returns to his agency. Based upon the sample reports NARS
has received, these improvement projects have saved 36 man-hours
for every man-hour spent by participants in the workshop. The
savings for the source data automation workshops exceed this average.
It should also be noted that all workshop material is available to
agencies for their own use.
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14 HOW TO CUT PAPERWORK
GSA has issued some general standards, particularly in regard to
the creation and keeping of records. These standards have concen-
trated first on those paperwork activities which can be most simply
covered in specific terms. Guidelines relatino:6 to professional tech-
niques have been left largely to the "Handbook" series. As there
develops sufficient consensus among management analysts in Govern-
ment and industry regarding application of management principles,
it is the intention to expand the official standards accordingly.
NARS evaluations
The purpose of the evaluation is fourfold:
(1) Determine the current status of records and paperwork manage-
ment program development within the agency.
(2) Measure the program against statutory requirements, regula-
tions, and other standards and criteria.
(3) Gage the effectiveness of the program in meeting management
and operational needs of the agency.
(4) Propose such actions as may be necessary to achieve compli-
ance with the statutes or regulations and to promote program
effectiveness.
The evaluation provides the agency with ,an objective report of
records and paperwork management program conditions, both good
and bad. It charts the course for needed- advancements and
improvements.
The NARS evaluation has an impact in two areas: (1)? NARS-
agency relationships and (2) internal agency relationships. Through
the evaluation, NARS-agency relationships are clarified and strength-
ened. In addition to providing a critique on the agency's paperwork
management program, the evaluation serves as a prime promotional
device for informing agencies of NARS interests and responsibilities
in Federal records management and operating officials. These offi-
cials receive a broad insight as to the nature of paperwork management
and the role it can play in the overall agency management scheme.
These officials are informed as to the meaning of a "paperwork man-
agement program" as envisioned by the Federal Records Act of 1950
and the GSA regulations.
Followup within the agency itself, as a result of an evaluation has a
profound effect on the format, scope, content, and placement of the
agency paperwork management program.
Proposals stemming from the evaluation often result in organiza-
tional changes, new and revised functional assignments, realinement
of management relationships, and the initiation of projects to improve
the planning, coordination, and administration of paperwork man-
agement in the agency. Agency records management standards,
criteria, and procedures are affected by the evaluation. Recom-
mendations cover the development of needed performance and pro-
cedural requirements and the strengthening of existing ones. Re-
sulting improvements affect product quality, in-process time, resource
utilization, and other key factors influencing paperwork Performance.
Legislation, regulations, agency policy, management concepts, and
operational procedures determine the characteristics of agency paper-
work products. Evaluation recommendations can involve any or all
of these elements. Consequently, an evaluation can shape the product
characteristics when needless, burdensome, and expensive paperwork
operations are eliminated or improved and streamlined. 2209
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Improved capability of agency personnel results from evaluations.
While savings and increased efficiency in paperwork activities are
an immediate target of the evaluaticon, the ultimate objective is to
develop an essential paperwork management capability. This means
that the agency itself will be able to detect and solve paperwork
problems. More importantly, it means that the agency will look at
data and document needs in the perspective of its assigned mission.
In some instances, evaluation proposals may be beyond the capability
of present agency personnel to implement. NARS provides technical
assistance in such cases, upon request.
Technical assistance
A third method of carrying out the objectives is through giving help
to those agencies which ask for it.
The level of activity for the technical assistance program has con-
tinued to increase over the last few years. NARS projects now total
over 100 a year.
Work in reducing delays, or in upgrading quality, is considered
to be as significant as the results expressed in terms of dollars. In
almost all cases, it has been possible to achieve all three goals: less
time for paperwork processing, better quality, and reduced costs. A
tally of dollar savings produced over the last 5 years indicates the
I ?Homing :
[In millions]
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
$1. 2
8. 6
7. 0
17.3
10.8
OFFICE OF FEDERAL RECORDS CENTERS
The National Archives and Records Service is spearheading other
records management programs. Those relating to appraising records
for permanent retention, retirement of records to records centers,
use of filing equipment, and use of microfilm, are operated by the
Office of Federal Records Centers.
Records appraisal
The review of records to identify those having permanent value is
an activity of NARS that predates the 1950 Federal Records Act.
Although the situation is better than it was 15 years ago, there
are still (a) too many records?nearly one-fourth of the total vol-
ume?designated by the agencies as permanent, (b) too many perma-
nent records scattered and intermixed with temporary records, and
(c) too many temporary records being kept beyond their usefulness.
With respect to (c) above, there is good reason to believe that in
1955, at the time of the second Hoover Commission, the average life
of a Federal record was 13 years. This, of course, excludes perma-
nent records. There is reason to believe that in 1966 the average
life has dropped to 9 years, and it could continue to drop to 7 years.
In 1962, the appraisal program was revitalized with a new approach.
Since then, the records of approximately 120 agencies or subordinate
units have been intensively reviewed. The experience to date indi-
cates that a target of 2 to 3 percent permanent records is obtainable
as the?program advances.
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Federal records centers
The National Archives and Records Service began operating 10
low-cost storage centers within,a few months after the enactment of
the 1950 records law. When the law was enacted, 308 depositories
(104 agency records centers and 204 other accumulations) were being
operated at a personal service and space maintenance cost of more
than $15 million a year. These numerous agency centers occupied
6,212,000 square feet of space, and engaged 5,904 employees.
Today, 10 centralized regional records centers of NARS are operat-
ing for roughly $4 million less than the cost of storing inactive records
under the decentralized agency plans. Better space utilization and
better techniques for servicing inactive records have resulted in
accumulated space and personnel saving of more than $50 million
since the law authorized the centralized centers. In the meantime,
the volume of records serviced by the general-purpose centers has
increased 200 percent.
In addition to the regional centers, NARS operates a special-
purpose center in St. Louis for civilian and military personnel records.
The transfer of civilian personnel records in 1951 was preceded by a
study which showed that the service folders of civilian personnel no
longer working for the Government occupied over 485,000 square
feet of prime, recoverable space. The folders, occupying 48,000 filing
cabinets, were used to answer some 600,000 inquiries a year covering
changes in employment and retirement. The maintenance and servic-
ing of these records required 360 employees. The work is now being
done by 200 employees, using 200,000 square feet of space, and 20,000
filing cabinets.
These regional centers currently receive about 750,000 cubic feet
of noncurrent records a year from Federal agencies and dispose of
about 550,000 cubic feet. Thus the centers each year absorb prac-
tically the entire increase in the records holdings of the Government.
The following table shows the effects of having such centers:
Total Federal records
Square
feet used
Office
space used
Storage
space used
In 1953: 25,000,000
In 1966: 25,000,000
25, 000, 000
17, 000, 000
20, 000, 000
13, 000, 000
5, 000, 000
4,000, 000
Not only has the amount of office space being used for records
declined, but by using center storage methods the square footage of
storage space has declined.
The second Hoover Commission indicated that two-thirds of all
Federal records could be placed in records center-type space. NARS
has been working toward an intermediate 50-percent goal.
Once half of all records are in center-type space, NARS will up its
goal to the recommended two-thirds.
The value of the office and storage space and the filing cabinets and
other filing equipment emptied for reuse by transfers to the Federal
records centers amounts to approximately $5 million a year. In
addition, the centers, by storing more economically the records
received from agencies in previous years, make it possible for the
Government to avoid the expenditure of another $4.6 million a year.
Put another way, and to emphasize the importance of a?sound-pAper-
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work savings program, without the records center program, three:
things would have occurred:
(a) Fewer records would have been destroyed or transferred from
office to warehouse-type space. This is estimated at 27 million cubic'
feet, or a cost of over $100 million for the period 1951-66.
(b) More office buildings would have been constructed, purchased
or leased to provide for the 27 million cubic feet of records. At a,
1-to-1 ratio at which these records are generally found in agencies,
about 27 million square feet of office space valued at more than $100
million annually would now be added to the Federal Government
space cost.
(e) More agency records centers would have been established to
stem the tide of needs for ever-increasing office space. The number of
agency centers and personnel operating them would have been doubled
during this period. The annual $15 million agency budget would now
be pegged at more than $30 million a year.
Taking these elements into account, the program savings plus the
avoidance of expenditures which would have otherwise been incurred
may reasonably be estimated at $250 million for the 1951-66 period.
Moratorium on purchase of new filing cabinets
The President's moratorium on the purchase of new filing cabinets,
has in the 12 months since it was imposed in January 1965, reduced the
Government purchase of new cabinets by 68 percent. Federal
purchases during calendar year 1965 totaled 34,467 cabinets, in con-
trast to 106,678 purchased in calendar year 1964. By purchasing
72,211 fewer cabinets, the Government avoided the expenditure of
$3,610,550.
The effectiveness of the moratorium is further demonstrated by the
fact that only 5,948 of the 34,467 cabinets purchased from GSA were
for urgent needs of agencies subject to the moratorium; the remaining
cabinets-83 percent?were almost entirely for military and civilian
use overseas. The moratorium has been extended into fiscal year
1967.
In addition, on September 22, 1966, the President issued a strong
directive calling for reduction of Federal Government paperwork in
general. The President's directive is shown as appendix E, page 69.
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CHAPTER V. PAPERWORK TECHNOLOGY
EFFICIENCY THROUGH BETTER FORMS
Almost three-fourths of all Federal records are forms, and half of all
Federal reports are forms.
Forms serve management in many ways. They constitute the
backbone of most systems. They are often selected as the natural
unit of workflow, production scheduling, and cost accounting. They
structure most performance reporting.
If there were no such things as forms, all responses to questions
asked people and organizations would have to be written out much as a
letter is written. In this sense, forms are highly efficient. Yet, their
cost is not insignificant. In fiscal year 1966, the Federal Government
is believed to have spent over $53 million to print its forms. In addi-
tion tests indicate that 20 times as much is spent on the clerical effort
involved in filling them in, forwarding them from office to office for
analyses, abstractions, calculations, and finally, for review and filing.
Large as this amount is?over $1 billion?it is small compared to the
cost of doing business without forms.
There are about 900 full-time forms technicians in the Federal
Government. On an average they are responsible for about 4,000
forms each (ranging from several hundred to over 15,000).
Unfortunately not all agencies have good programs. In some cases
this is because the personnel in charge have been poorly trained; in
others topside support is lacking; while in still others the program is
not organizationally well placed.
As long as so much of paperwork costs involve forms, they have the
potential to increase or decrease total costs. Costs go up when the
forms are inefficient. This happens when they?
Are difficult to fill in;
Duplicate or overlap each other;
Have poorly written prescribing instructions;
Contain unneeded information;
Have more copies than necessary;
Are the wrong tool for the parent procedure;
Fail to follow design standards;
Are uncontrolled in their creation; or
Clog up a supply system because of obsolescence.
Today, with the advent of punched paper tapes, tape-to-card and
tape-to-tape converters, storage of data on magnetic tapes and drums,
and the use of internally stored programs, the principle of single entry
of basic data at the source gives new authority to forms as the input
medium. Agencies adopting source data automation no longer re-
quire as many forms for a given procedure, but the forms are more
complex and can only be designed by someone familiar with the re-
quirements, logic, and limitation of the type of equipment being used.
It takes many forms (estimated to be some 360,000 different ones,
utilizing 15 billion copies) to keep the wheels of Government turning.
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In Government, as in industry, it is a rare procedure which does not
require the use of at least one form. Thus, a question often more
pertinent than the merits of the form itself is the necessity for, or the
efficiency of, the procedure which requires its use.
Forms management means that the work implications of each form
will be weighed before it is printed. The forms analyst is in a posi-
tion to produce savings through better procedures, secure the benefits
inherent in meeting design standards, and improve public relations.
THE DRIVE FOR BETTER LETTERS
The billion letters produced annually in the Federal Government
cost approximately $1.5 billion. They vary from an average of 25
cents for a form letter to an average cost of $2.75 for an individually
dictated letter. If agencies were to make full and effective use of the
mechanical aids and procedures available to deal with correspondence,
the public service could make substantial savings. The fact is that,
as with the other areas examined in this report, correspondence man-
agement will richly reward proper cultivation.
Correspondence is being mechanized, but the rate is not adequate
in terms of the total problem. Although most agencies report use of
some type of automatic typewriter, none is handling a large part of its
correspondence through extensive use of preapproved paragraphs and
letters produced on typewriters from punched tape. The form letter
and guide-paragraphs permit large volumes of routine and repetitive
correspondence to be handled expeditiously, but the savings from the
use of such techniques are still not being fully realized.
Over half of all Government letters are individually prepared. If
only a small proportion of these were converted to preprinted and
stocked form letters, the resultant savings would be impressive. A
further important saving could be made by converting other indi-
vidually prepared letters to preapproved guide letters. Approxi-
mately one-quarter of all correspondence produced in the Government
is initially hand drafted, the most inefficient and expensive way to
produce correspondence. Probably 80 percent of the hand-drafted
correspondence could readily be dictated to machines, with consequent
significant savings.
Another costly practice is the preparation of letters by subordinates
for the signature of a senior official who has not delegated signing
authority to appropriate levels. These letters frequently pass up and
down several times for rewriting at several levels before final approval,
signature, and dispatch.
Full advantage has not been taken of the benefits to be gained from
proper utilization of stenographic and transcribing pools. The usual
objections, alleging poor service and poor quality, are only valid
where the pools are badly administered, where production standards
are not set, or where insufficient training is given. Stenographic pools
still provide opportunities for progressive training, the application of
incentives, the use of work measurement, the introduction of quality
control, and for effective work distribution to alleviate problems
oaused by peak workloads.
The 1955 Hoover Commission task force realized that a correspond-
ence style board, similar to the Government Printing Office Style
Board, was definitely needed. Such a board was established, and with
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NARS participating, in 1960 brought out the U.S. Government
Correspondence Manual. Most agencies have accepted the manual
as their own and have merely supplemented it where it needed to fit
their own particular needs. There are, however, agencies which still
insist on publishing their own style manuals, usually duplicating the
standards spelled out in the Government Correspondence Manual.
Realizing that $100 to $200 million could be saved by applying more
efficient correspondence methods and techniques, NARS in 1957
created a correspondence management workshop to explain and
promote the installation of such techniques. The workshop covers the
content and operation of a correspondence management program,
the standards and principles of plain letterwriting, and the possibilities
of form and guide letters. This workshop reached over 200,000 Fed-
eral employees between 1957 and 1963.
In 1965 because of President Johnson's interest in combating
Government gobbledygook and creating a better public image of the
Government, Mr. John Macy was appointed to head a committee to
look into exactly what the agencies were doing to lick this problem.
The bureaucratic tone found in some Federal letters was the main
target of this campaign. NARS was called on to create a training
course aimed at the top echelon of Government. The course, called
plain letters for Federal executives, was given under the auspices of the
GSA Institute. This particular workshop in 1966 has been given to
1,800 Federal executives, representing 44 agencies.
If correspondence trainineis to be of lasting benefit to an agency it
must reach most of the agency's letterwriters and preferably be given
within the agency itself. The Department of Agriculture (Agricul-
tural Stabilization and Conservation Service), has adopted the course.
The Department of the Navy, Public Health Service (Division of
Nursing) and the Social Security Administration, also have adopted
this training. A similar project is now going on in the Veterans'
Administration.
The number of letters being received by Federal officials, including
Congressmen, is increasing yearly. Some attribute this to greater de-
mocratization of the American political process, some to increasing liter-
acy, and still others to the increasing impact of the Federal Govern-
ment on people's lives. As an example of this great increase, about
140,000 letters, addressed to the President, arrived at the White
House each year through the Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower
administrations. Then the mail spiraled to an average of 307,312
pieces during the John F. Kennedy years. In 1965, President John-
son had 825,750 letters mailed to him.
GUIDING THE MAN ON THE JOB (DIRECTIVES)
It was estimated, in 1963, that directives cost the Federal Govern-
ment about $400 million a year, using the $400-per-page formula,
because 1 million pages of directives were being produced every year.
There are now in existence in directives systems, about 1 page of
directives per Federal employee or about 2,660,000 pages. However,
there are about 5 million pages of directives that are not part of the
formal systems.
In directives systems evaluations made in Government departments
and agencies, certain consistent problems prevail. These problems
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seem to persist throughout 18 evaluation reports resulting from the
National Archives and Records Service authority to evaluate paper-
work systems. Directives are not current; not updated; need new
indexes or updated indexes; are too voluminous; are written in lan-
guage too difficult to assimilate; require replanning the basic subject
classification and thus require reissuance of the related instructional
releases; are republished, expanded, or amplified ad infinitum at
various organizational levels; are complicated by supplementation
with temporary or overlapping instructions; and are not kept current
because of instructions in correspondence not being transposed to
directives form. All of these problems are chronic symptoms.
Basic directives system problems
The problems that plague every directives system are not the
mechanics of the system, nor misunderstanding of the mechanics by
the persons who install or centrally control the system. It is generally
the inability to assure compliance with the system throughout the
organization because of a lack of: (a) a network of control personnel
at the operating or generating levels; (b) a fully planned table of
contents or subject classification; and (c) a fully appropriate and viable
distribution system.
Agency analysts, in charge of directives control, only call for outside
assistance when such a call for help will not reflect on their own com-
petency to develop and operate an efficient system. Yet, these staffs
may need more than anything else the operating supervisor's support
in correcting deficiencies in the directives system. Therefore, there
is the tendency to hold back in correcting underlying problems until
the directives system is recognized by line officials as causing them
tremendous operating problems. In these cases, a complete overhaul,
rewriting all or most releases, plus integrating those in stages of
development, demands a great amount of staff time. In light of
daily pressures, this time is considered a luxury that is given the
lowest priority. Surveys of systems do determine and define the
problems and provide recommended solutions. However, unless
administrators allow for complete resolution rather than partial
remedies, the problems recur and reflect again on the system itself.
Training writers of directives
Almost all professional or technical Government personnel in
headquarters offices are initiators or writers of directives. They
come into Government service as their specialized skills are needed.
Their backgrounds consist of years of growth in their fields, and they
are not and cannot all be trained to write or prepare their materials
in the regimented form necessary to an effective directives system.
Management encourages and allows some personnel to attend direc-
tives workshops. This helps to a great degree. However, the work-
shop attendees are most often those people who are already aware of
directives system problems or are not in a position to substantially
correct situations at the operating level where the directives are born
and where conformity to the system is most essential.
It is literally impossible and impractical to train 200,000 persons
headquartered in the Washington area plus those in headquarters
offices located throughout the United States because: (1) the majority
of administrators and key officials do not consider directives manage-
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ment of sufficient stature to visualize the extent to which it saves
program operating personnel time and effort for their primary program
duties, (2) the secondary and lower level officials reflect the views of
their key officials, (3) there would never be enough training officers to
reach the number of people actually affected, and (4) the turnover of
personnel at the top as well as working levels is so constant that
training as well as the education of key officials in its need, is never a
one-time accomplishment.
BETTER INFORMATION FOR DECISIONMAKERS (REPORTING)
Reports are becoming in the aggregate the most expensive type of
record to create. They convey information and intelligence to officials
for management purposes and furnish other branches with trans-
actional information to carry out their work. The objectives of
report control are elimination of reports or data not required; con-
solidation and simplification of reports; the use of economical methods
of preparation; and the determination of data requirements. The
last named leads into management information: which aims at getting
the feedback to management's set of quantitative goals. This often
requires planning officers or appraisal officers who are heavily involved
in finding out what the manager needs.
Reporting is an area of paperwork in which the Government
presently invests approximately $1 billion a year. This cost breaks
down to $550 million annually for routine management reporting and
$250 million on special reports. Adding the cost to prepare and
collect information for the public, one gets a total of $1.3 billion.
This compares with the Hoover Commission figure of $700 million
for 1955. There are approximately 125,000 recurring reports pre-
pared internally, compared to the 1955 figure of 100,000.
Because reports are so closely interwoven with organizational
objectives, they are dynamic and ever changing. The reports control
approach of the 1950's has made significant contributions, but is
gradually changing to emphasize the need for the right information.
Now automation combines with transactional and operational informa-
tion to add a new dimension to data processing. All three, each
with its special contribution, form the total management information
complex. The component parts may be said to be the following:
1. Developing economical and effective preparation.?Determining
cost and man-hours in preparing reports; reduction of costly executive
preparation time through delegation; insuring timely, clear, concise
reports; and determining economical, effective presentation such as
written, pictorial, or oral.
2. Evaluating requests for reports.?Determining the degree of justifi-
cation in terms of information contribution versus cost.
3. Periodic auditing of reports.?Reviewing reports inventory to
insure timely action in eliminating, up-dating and combining. Re-
viewing objectives, functions, procedures, staff, and equipment used.
4. Reducing number and costs of reports. Simplifying reporting
procedure, eliminating routine information in favor of "exceptions,"
and reducing the amount of higher paid executive time in report
reviewing.
5. Eliminating nonessential and unauthorized reports.?Discovering
and discontinuing "bootleg" reports and unauthorized reproduction
and duplication.
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6. Improving quality of reports.?Establishing standards of reporting
format, brevity, clarity, and accuracy.
7. Identification and coding.?Properly assigning titles and control
numbers to aid in detecting unauthorized reports, duplication, and
overlapping functions.
8. Determining individual and total report costs.?Obtaining and
analyzing data for costs of gathering report information, report
preparation, distribution and retention. Comparing cost of report,
value of information, and contribution to total system.
ROOT OF THE RECORDS PROBLEM: SOURCE DATA
Early in 1956 the Navy Department began a drive to speed up its
paperwork processing with a new technique. Simply stated, this was
a technique for capturing the information needed throughout a paper-
work system in a machinable language---paper tape, punched cards,
etc.?so that machines, not people, could perform the necessary proc-
essing steps.
Following a 3-year period of fostering the use of "source data
automation," as it became known, the Department found it had
developed an impressive list of improved systems. These systems
caught the attention of the Bureau of the Budget, which determined
that a Government-wide promotion of these techniques might produce
similar results. The Bureau, in 1960, assigned this mission to the
National Archives and Records Service.
Source data automation
"SDA" has become a modern management approach to the task
of making paperwork less burdensome and more fruitful. It is
designed to bring economy, accuracy, and speed to repetitive paper-
work operations, particularly those of large volume. Source data
automation starts with automation at the source of the data, where
the work begins; it provides the vehicle for a self-perpetuating data
system; it facilitates the transmission and storage of data so that
information may be used over and over again, recaptured in the many
forms that management and operations may require.
NABS and source data automation (SDA)
In February 1961, the first SDA workshop was conducted for the
Regional Directors of the National Archives and Records Service with
the instruction that they conduct it for any willing agency. Within
1 year, the results obtained were showing a proportion of man-hours
saved against man-hours expended of 68 to 1. The man-hours saved
are from improvement projects developed by the participants attend-
ing the workshop.
The participants "price of admission" is that he will undertake an
improvement project when he returns to his agency. It is this latter
innovation which has produced savings of $10,237,000 from 389 im-
provement projects developed by participants attending the 112 work-
shops during the past 5 years.
The source data automation workshop has been attended by an esti-
mated 10,000 administrators, supervisors, and analysts.
An agency with an imposing record of SDA applications is the
Department of Agriculture with 96 systems implemented at an
estimated annual savings of over $2 million. The Navy saved $5
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Z41 HOW TO CUT PAPERWORK
million in jet fuel procurement by using SDA techniques in just
one procurement procedure. The Army decided to test the effective-
ness of an SDA workshop approach and found that 56 attendees
proposed 51 improved systems. Maj. Gen. J. E. Landrum com-
mented, "full implementation of an SDA program in the Army could
eliminate 20,000 positions."
Yet to be done
With repeated exposure to the principles of SDA, NARS work-
shop specialists learned that an SDA approach to system.s improve-
ment often went beyond the immediate source. On many occasions,
improved systems, developed by workshop participants, lead directly
to the machine room. About this same time, the machine room
specialists realized that the cost of making the data machine ready
often exceeded the cost of electronically processing it. It is these
two factors which are now leading to a much more fruitful area of
improvement projects.
Various sources have developed figures on the overall costs of
operating automatic data processing equipment in the Federal Gov-
ernment. These figures range from $14 to $3 billion. However, all
sources agree that input?making the data ready?represents at least
$550 million A strong SDA program can substantially reduce these
costs and in addition produce many byproduct benefits; greater
accuracy, faster service, better information for management, to name
but a few.
The materials and equipment needed to conduct SDA workshops
have been available to the agencies since August 1962. Each agency
should undertake the following course of action:
1. Establish a small organizational entity to automate source data.
2. Assign, to this organization, no less than two persons with man-
agement analysis or systems analysis experience.
3. Detail these persons for a 2-month period to one of NARS
regional offices for the purpose of attending and assisting in conduct-
ing SDA workshops, learning the principles of SDA techniques, and
participating in SDA systems studies.
SPEEDING MAIL TO ACTION DESKS
The Federal Government is one of the largest growing users of its
own postal system?mailing about 2 billion pieces of first-class surface
mail each year. The figure is up a half billion since 1955. The
individual agencies now reimburse the Post Office about $128 9 million
(up from $38 million in 1955). The volume of mail handled by mail-
rooms of Government agencies requires 38,551 mail and file personnel
and 4,951 messengers?at a cost of $200 million To the two current
costs, just mentioned, must be added a still larger third one?the cost
of controlling mail in operating offices and the reviews and concur-
rences outgoing mail gets in the signing process.
The benefits to be obtained from mail management are being bet-
ter understood in the Government. It is the general practice that
mail from the public is answered promptly. Although one still hears
of persons waiting weeks for a reply from the Federal Government,
such cases are few out of the 1 billion letters written each year.
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25
Agencies are securing their mail improvements largely through
following published standards. This can be readily seen when it is
understood that most improvements have been obtained by:
(a) Putting procedures in writing.
(b) Developing routing guides and routing direct to action
office.
(c) Reducing and simplifying controls.
(d) Assigning messenger activities to a single office and tailor-
ing messenger routes and schedules to agency needs and post
office schedules.
(e) Reducing the number of mailrooms and mail stations.
(f) Limiting clearances, reviews, and rewrites.
(g) Using laborsaving devices.
(h) Selecting the right postal service.
The last-mentioned item bears some elaboration. It refers to
using first-class mail instead of airmail, using third-class mail instead
of first-class mail, and fourth-class mail instead of first-class mail.
Many Federal offices seem to want everything (including bulky
publications and blank forms) to go first class.
PROTECTING VITAL RECORDS
This program has been based on certain ground rules that have been
generally accepted as valid. These basic assumptions, which are
applicable to State and local governments as well as to the Federal
agencies, are seven:
1. That in the event of war the city of Washington will be a prime
target.
2. That other large metropolitan and industrial centers will be
equally prime targets.
3. That the entire concept of "protection" must be based on relative
rather than on absolute safety, since probably no vault that is near
or above the surface of the gound could withstand a direct hit by the
most destructive bombs. Adequate underground storage facilities are
not available in many areas.
4. That the need for duplication of records will vary according to
the value of the record, the normal distributon of copies, and the
relative safety of the places to which the copies are distributed.
5. That evacuation to a nontarget area is the most practical means
of providing protection, with the realization at the same time that the
hitherto nontarget area may become a target area as soon as the
valuable material is moved into it.
6. That a calculated risk must be taken with regard to certain
records of lesser value than those identified as vital records.
7. That each agency affected is responsible for planning and putting
into effect action necessary to protect its records.
This program has been in effect since 1952. Yet, what appears on
paper to be the best possible program for the protection of vital
records will represent a complete waste of time and effort if it is not
kept up to date.
To insure that the program is adequate it must be simple and
economical, and it must be tested periodically in one way or another.
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In determining what are vital records, there are two confficting tend-
encies to be reconciled:
1. The tendency of most officials to overemphasize the value of
the tasks they are performing and consequently to earmark too many
records as vital records and
2. The tendency of Officials to forget that when someone else must
perform their vital functions, that other person will not have the
benefit of all the information in their own minds.
The records must be complete enough to enable a person relatively
strange to the job to carry it out, and they must be few enough to make
a continuing program practical.
Federal agencies have found that, as in the case of private com-
panies, the percentage of all their records that deserve designation as
vital records will vary with the functions they are to perform, but
that in any event the percentage will be relatively small. One Gov-
ernment agency with extensive mobilization responsibilities which
presumably in a time of emergency would expand very rapidly and
perhaps would be divided into several independent agencies, presently
has in storage a volume of records equal to 2 percent of its total
holdings. Another agency, which would continue in an emergency
to carry on most of its present functions, has provided for safeguarding
1 percent of its current holdings. These agencies have taken care to
avoid developing overly elaborate programs to safeguard everything,
and they should be able to continue their programs indefinitely without
running into budget or procedural difficulties.
In order to be sure that the vital records program is kept current
the Office of Emergency Planninc, has instituted a reporting system by
Federal agencies to the National Archives and Records Service that is
intended to serve several purposes. Among them, NARS is to
remind agencies constantly that they should review the progress of
their programs.
The reporting system provides NARS full information on the status
of the program, the persons responsible for specific activities, and the
nature and whereabouts of the key records. The program is working
well enough that no recommendations seem to be needed at this time.
INFORMATION RETRIEVAL
Viewing the problem
The period since World War II has witnessed an "information
explosion." Much of the writing coming out of this explosion has not
been books, but has been articles in journals, monographs, special
reports, speeches at symposiums and colloquiums, and the processed
proceedings of highly technical conferences.
Libraries with their classification methodology were not very well
prepared to cope with such an outpouring of information, often in a
very limited number of copies. This gave rise to a new breed of
"special libraries," "document centers," "information centers,"
"technical files," and the like, using a new kind of indexing controls?
usually called "coordinate indexing" and controlled by "thesauri."
The Government has entered this picture in a number of ways?
it supports financially a great deal of the technological and scientific
research that produces the literature; it is concerned with coordinating
the hundreds of locations where specialized pieces of the total literature
are being maintained. The most recent large study in this connection
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was the "Recommendations for National Document Handling Systems
in Science and Technology," Committee on Scientific and Technical
Information, Federal Council for Science and Technology, prepared
by the Systems Development Corporation in November 1965. Early
in the report this statement occurs:
This report is confined to the scientific and technical infor-
mation and documentation system. In some ways the
limitation is unfortunate since there is so much other infor-
mation and so many other documents which form a tradi-
tional part of the communication and documentation world.
The report does not deal with material in the humanities,
the law, the arts, or commerce. Traditionally, the formal
knowledge system, a part of which involves publishers and
libraries, has not separated one branch of knowledge from
the others as deserving special and preferential treatment.
However, in recent years the Federal Government has recog-
nized the great importance of science and technology to the
general welfare and has given this area unusual and generous
support. Scientific and technical information and documen-
tation has played a part in this new emphasis, and because
of its central position in transmitting knowledge it has been
singled out for special attention. While this is only natural,
it is to be hoped that appropriate attention will also be given
to the documentation and library problems in other fields of
knowledge and endeavor.'
The footnote is notable. It excludes material usually found in
office files rather than in libraries. Actually, many areas of the office
are experiencing the same serious gap in the storage and retrieval of
information and data as the scientific information centers. While the
automated library-type systems and techniques developed for the
scientific and technical communities offer fertile ideas for solving the
information storage and retrieval in these other areas, they cannot,
unfortunately, be applied wholesale to office records. Officials con-
cerned with Government paperwork are awakening to the possibilities
that these new systems and techniques offer involving their informa-
tion problems, but they have not yet acquired sufficient knowledge
and experience in the art to apply them profitably. Literature on the
subject of information retrieval, while voluminous, is concerned with
technical libraries and is not readily understood by managers and
systems personnel. The dilemma, then, is that many offices are not
taking advantage of these techniques to increase efficiency, while
others are going ahead with ill-advised and thus unprofitable applica-
tions.
Relation to automation
Another reason paperwork managers should be concerned with appli-
cation of information retrieval techniques is that it should be con-
sidered as a necessary corollary to automatic data processing. In
many offices today where there are highly sophisticated, efficient sys-
tems for the automatic processing of accounting and similar data, the
1 It should also be mentioned that this study is concerned largely with journals, monographs, reports,
proceedings, books, etc. Another important part of the formal document system is not included, namely
that part dealing with such material as: engineering drawings, specifications, manuals, industrial catalogs,
maps, and photographs.
. 4.# ,va ?
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23 HOW TO CUT PAPERWORK
larger bulk of detailed information and data which must be retained
for long periods is still beim,.b stored and retrieved in much the same way
that it was 50 years ago. In the personnel field, computers are being
used to maintain payroll and fiscal records, and execute various ac-
counting transactions, yet most such offices keep all other data regard-
ing their employees in personnel case folders. Consequently, a
rather strange paradox exists in many offices today. For example, the
same agency that can complete payroll statistics in a matter of
seconds may require days or weeks to identify those employees who
should be considered in filling a vacancy. This is because the office
can utilize the computer for the first type of data, but must manually
screen individual folders, or resort to other methods, for obtaining the
second type. The result, then, is that it is often not only far more
expensive to retrieve the data, but the office cannot take advantage
of the computer capability to correlate and manipulate data as de-
manded by a particular situation, or to routinely produce statistics
and other management information.
In every agency there are employees whose principal work is re-
trieval of information to satisfy various operational and management
needs. Most of this work is being done by conventional methods, and
indeed, there are many times when it should be. However, most man-
agers today are not sufficiently knowledgeable in the field of informa-
tion retrieval to know when these operations should be automated
and when they should not. Many managers, to be sure, are not fully
aware of the fact that in their legal offices as much as 75 percent of the
attorney man-hours are being spent in searching through bulky
volumes of laws, legal opinions, and court cases. Nor, are the man-
agers or the attorneys themselves yet able to determine to what ex-
tent automated information retrieval techniques might be applied to
reduce costs and assure consistency in such activities as adjudicating
claims, preparing briefs, and rendering administrative opinions and
decisions.
Automated information retrieval systems are divided into two types
of systems based on the form of the information stored. One category
stores large volumes of simple data or information bits, and through
high-speed random access devices processes the data into meaningful
information. The other type stores duplicates of original source data
in the form of microfilm, video tape or a similar medium and relies on
mechanical, photoelectric, and in some cases, EDP systems for
retrieval.
A. Computer retrieval.?The most efficient use of the computer is
made by taking full advantage of the machine's capacity to perform
high-speed manipulations. When data can be stored or input as
units of information, particularly as original source data rather than
from ( ocuments, the system can rapidly search for, retrieve, and
perform operations with data, and produce the results in several media
forms. Both input and output can be in the form of punched cards,
punched tape or magnetic tape and, additionally, output may be pre-
sented as typed paper or by cathode ray tube from which microfilm
prints can be simply made. Permanent records or memory units can
be provided for the computer by disc or drum storage files.
Since much of the information desired by management is in the
form of correspondence and original source documents, the use of a
costly computer installation to merely produce retypings from its
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29
memory would be extremely costly and wasteful. The process would
involve converting paperwork to an input medium for future recon-
version back to paper. Microfilm can provide a compromise to make
computer record retrieval more efficient through the medium of aper-
ture cards. These cards are regular punched cards which contain a
small square of film upon which numerous pages are photographed.
The computer can then locate and deliver the desired material rapidly
using the normal indexing method of through cross-indexing to fit a
variety of situations.
B. Photomemory systems.?Photomemory units are basically central-
ized storage devices for microfilm records. The microfilm records may
be in reel form or separated into tiny cards called "chips" and are
enclosed in some form of storage cannister or cartridge which form a
part of the indexing system. Normally a small section of the film is
devoted to magnetic spots or some other coded form to indicate
indexing, cross-indexing, or subjects, which are scanned by the
photomemory unit in the retrieval process. By manipulating a series
of keys in sequence with the desired search pattern the microfilm is
delivered rapidly (10 to 25 frames per second) past the photocell
selector which scans the machine readable code and presents the
desired document(s) to the operator on a viewer, or rapidly prepares a
paper copy before refilling the film unit. With some equipment it is
possible to employ photoposting techniques to add information to the
miniature microfilm documents.
C. Separated search system and records storage.?Other systems that
do not combine storage and retrieval systems have been developed to
assist in finding records pertaining to a specific subject from among
large, complex filing systems. An example of one such system employs
cards pertaining to key terms and individual documents in the files.
Search is made for a combination of terms by mechanically superim-
posing cards over a light source and observing the coded holes through
which the light appears as dots. The position of the light dots may
indicate the file serial number where the desired document will be
found or pinpoint exact physical location if cards containing a print of
the document storage area are used.
FILING: EVERYBODY IS IN THE ACT
Management of files is one of the most underevaluated and mis-
understood segments in the management area. Over 255,000 Federal
employees spend a majority of their time filing documents. An effective
files management program in the Government includes the following:
1. Acceptance of standards for classifying and indexing records, and
for the promulgation of a filing manual.
2. Placement of files in convenient locations, considering factors of
proximity and administrative necessity, in order to avoid duplicate
files.
3. Review of requisitions for filing equipment to control purchases,
to allow for interchange of surplus equipment, and to provide guidance
as to the most suitable equipment available.
4. A training program i n all phases of files management, regularly
updated to reflect new developments in recordkeeping practices,
equipment, and supplies.
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Earlier in this report the committee already commented at some
length on the growing number of file stations in the Government and
the effect of volume on the filing classification systems.
? The designation of official file stations prevents mushrooming of
files in other locations; helps prevent unnecessary duplication; ends
confusion as to whereabouts of documents; contributes to completeness
of files; and aids disposition of records. The chief difficulty of the
Federal Government in the recordkeeping area is somehow connected
with the overproduction of files. The division has a file; then the
section has to have a copy too; it can't use the division's copy. The
unit has a file; it can't use the section copy; then there is the fourth
copy going to another office. All four of these offices may be in the
same corridor; they may be on the same floor; they may even be
adjacent to one another, but they can't use the copy in the next
office. They can only use a copy of their own. The making of four
copies isn't really the costly thing. It's in the keeping of them that
the cost mounts.
It's this kind of situation which causes the Government to create
about 4.6 million cubic feet of records a year.
MANAGING RECORDS DISPOSITION
Management of records disposition includes:
Eliminating records no longer needed;
Preserving records of value;
Predetermining their retention; and
Freeing valuable space and equipment.
In the Federal Government records are destroyed in accordance
with "records control schedules" prepared by the agencies, appraised
by the National Archives and Records Service, and approved by the
Congress. Every agency is expected to have every type of record
it creates covered by a "records control schedule." Each type is
expected to be kept for the shortest feasible time.
Nearly all Federal records are scheduled. Too many are kept too
long, but the agency records managers keep working at this problem.
Most agencies run a volume count on their records annually and
thus have facts as to whether they are able to destroy as many records
each year as they create. This is the goal of most agency records
managers.
Most agencies try to transfer between 10 and 15 percent of their
records, each year, -to Federal records centers or agency storage.
Most agencies realize records tie up prime space and equipment
unless an adequate records disposition program is in effect. The
space and equipment freed each year through disposal has a value
running into the millions of dollars.
WORKSHOPS: THE EDUCATIONAL APPROACH THAT ALSO PRODUCES ACTION
NARS workshops have been mentioned in this part of the report.
Since they are worth separate examination, a recap of the workshops
available to agency use might be useful:
Files improvement, 2 days; records disposition, 1 day; forms
improvement, 3 days; speeding con espondence 1 day; records man-
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agement, 10 days; source data automation, 5 days; directive manage-
ment, 2 days; correspondence management, 3 days; modernizing
reports, 4 days; information retrieval, 4 days.
These workshops, though designed to be educational?explain the
Federal-wide standards?have never stopped there. They are meant
to result in agency improvements as well as increasing an individual's
knowledge of doing a job. They do these by blanket coverage of all
the personnel of the organization that might benefit from the training.
The attendees then, after returning to their work, undertake an
improvement project. This means that a sizable organization may
have a hundred or more individual projects underway after a series of
workshop presentations.
The attendee must not only undertake a project; he must report the
project's accomplishments on a simple reporting form. The forms,
when collected, make the tallying of results possible.
Results have universally been good, although agencies have not
availed themselves of the workshops on the scale they should. Work-
shop benefits are both intangible and tangible, as might be expected.
Computable results, in the form of savings, run into the millions of
dollars. Note these examples.
Records disposition workshop, 1959 through 1965 (rounded to
nearest thousand) has helped agencies destroy 96,000 cubic feet of
records; has been instrumental in releasing 24,000 filing cabinets; has
caused 68,000 cubic feet of records not previously scheduled to be
scheduled; has resulted in 57,000 cubic feet of records being transferred
to Federal records centers.
Forms improvement workshop, 1958 through 1965 (rounded to
nearest hundred) has eliminated 2,600 forms, man-hour and printing
savings unknown; has produced 6,100 revised forms with benefits
totaling 492,000 man-hours and $26,000 less printing costs; has devel-
oped 400 new forms with benefits estimated at 172,000 man-hours.
Source data automation workshop, 1961 through 1965 (rounded to
nearest thousand) has initiated the installation of over 275 new
automated paperwork systems, with benefits in excess of $10 million.
This report cannot give all the results in detail, yet when put in the
aggregates, some of the significance gets lost. Therefore, listed in
appendix B are the benefits from the correspondence management
workshop for the period 1958-61. The list is still typical rather than
exhaustive. The list indicates:
(a) Reduced verbiage from 10 to 50 percent;
(b) Eliminated almost one-half a million individual letters a
year;
(c) Reduced copies by almost 1 million sheets a year; and
(d) Substantially reduced preparation, review, and clearance
effort.
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CHAPTER VI. HOW FEDERAL AGENCIES CAN ORGANIZE FOR
PAPERWORK MANAGEMENT
AGENCY RESPONSIBILITY UNDER THE FEDERAL RECORDS ACT
Every agency recognizes, in some fashion, the existence of the Fed-
eral Records Act of 1950. In the large agencies there is usually a
small records management or "paperwork management" group at the
highest level which promotes good practices and coordinates the
work of the second levels, generally called bureaus, services, com-
mands, or departments. There is then a similar office at the second
level, which attempts to make its influence felt there. Frequently,
at the field level, there will be a counterpart group in the large offices,
particularly those which have command or coordinating roles, as
regional offices.
Whatever the Federal Records Act of 1950 may have helped accom-
plish, it did not provide a generally acceptable concept of what paper-
work management work is, nor where it might be most usefully located
in the organization.
FURTHER DEFINITION OF PAPERWORK MANAGEMENT
By the time the concept of paperwork management came on the
scene in the mid-1940's two other groups with paperwork management
overtones were already on the scene. They were the accounting sys-
tems analysts and the organization and methods examiners. Gen-
erally they closed ranks against the newcomers. The accounting
systems analysts maintained that financial recordkeeping was "off
limits" to paperwork managers, and the organization and methods
examiners initially felt that forms, reports, and directives were "off
limits" to them.
At least two things happened in the late 1950's which somewhat
changed this?the introduction of electronic data processing and the
rise of the concept of "management analyst."
The concept of the management analyst is the systems innovator,
the consultant, the generalist who makes thorough studies and recom-
mendations. He is not the person who operates a management system.
Most organization and methods examiners of the 1950's operated
management systems?such as forms, reports, and directives. In
U.S. Civil Service Commission position standards the persons who
hold these positions are termed "management technicians" to dis-
tinguish them from the "management analysts."
In a study made in 1957 by Dr. Irene Place, educator and author, it
was found that organized systems groups tended to fit into one of
four general areas.
1. The group associated with office services. This group empha-
sized the functions of clerical work measurement, office layout and
space management, forms control, files management, and records
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retention programs. This group tends to be management technicians,
using Civil Service Commission terminology.
2. The group reporting to a controller and staffed mostly by per-
sonnel from the accounting department. These persons tend to see
the job of systems analysis as primarily one of manuals and standard
practices, accounting and cost control. These tend to be called
accounting systems analysts.
3. The group reporting directly to assistant secretary, or adminis-
trator, and who see the job of the systems analyst as a management
planning, top-level policy and procedure review activity. They
emphasize organization studies, systems design, management research
and communications. This group tends to be called management
analysts by the Civil Service Commission.
4. The group concerned primarily with electronic data processing
equipment applications, and operations. This group is generally com-
posed of digital computer systems analysts.
The concept of management technician has never been accepted by
a majority of the paperwork specialists. The U.S. Civil Service Com-
mission should consider this matter further, and should discard the
concept if it is a barrier to getting the paperwork improvement job of
the Government done well.
LOCATION OF PAPERWORK IN AGENCY OPERATIONS
So long as agencies do not agree on their definition of what paper-
work or records management work is, they could never be expected
to agree on where to place the total or the various specialized com-
ponents. Still, two patterns have gradually been emerging.
The systems pattern
Many agencies place their management analysts and their manage-
ment technicians in some element devoted to systems development
and systems review. This would include the paperwork specialties.
The service pattern
Many other agencies tend to have a systems element that excludes
the paperwork specialties. These specialties are then placed in
management support, administrative services, and office methods.
The systems pattern roughly corresponds to group 2 in Dr. Place's
categories. The service pattern roughly corresponds to her group 1.1
BARRIERS TO BETTER PAPERWORK MANAGEMENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS
There are at least five barriers that should be enumerated in view
of the number of times they occur.
Lack of various program elements
Although all agencies claim to have a records program, based on the
statutory requirements of the Federal Records Act of 1950, actually,
there are usually a number of voids. These voids are surprising
because they disregard official regulations and represent paperwork
problems for which concrete solutions are available. For example,
many agencies will have postage bills of at least $500,000, but will
have no one assigned to the duty of reviewing mail management to
keep these costs down. Another example is frequently found in the
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forms area. Forms cost many agencies, if effort required to complete
them is included, in excess of $300,000. But again there may not be
anyone specifically assigned to combat the expenditure. in these
days when so many people are acquainted with the fact of the $2
letter, outgoing correspondence representing such letters exceeds in
many agencies a figure of a quarter of a million dollars. However,
persons qualified to attack this cost are seldom found in agencies. In
comparison, most agencies have learned that it costs money to keep
old files and have designated qualified records disposal specialists to
check this expense.
Paperwork costs are not irreducible; they can be substantially
reduced. This understanding is the beginning of paperwork improve-
ment.
Lack of management support
Because paperwork improvement is time consuming and to many
managers lacks glamor, management seldom gives this type of program
adequate support. Yet paperwork is so clearly related to management
policy, that without such support, most improvements are abortive.
A qualitative analysis of paperwork involves such questions as,
"Why are we doing this?" "Is management getting needed informa-
tion?" "Is it timely and in the best possible form?" Management
will soon discover that paperwork is after all the natural outcome of
policy. It is not so much a matter of how much paper, but what is
on it, and why if at all, it is needed.
When the talk of the need for paperwork is questioned, management
will find that objectives can be realized through less, not more, paper.
Before a paper is eliminated, however, the concept of the procedure
responsible for its creation must be examined. Management must
first be conscious of the reasons for paperwork, and then, and only
then, can improvement begin.
At present most attacks on paperwork are on individual weaknesses.
The total maladjustment is neglected. This situation is hazardous,
for without proper procedure and organization for flow of information,
based on a qualitative analysis of the problem, all of these attacks
will break down.
Lack of agency standards
There is more need for agencywide standards, geared to specific
needs, than for Federal-wide standards, issued by GSA.
A few standards on such items as the cost of letters, the cost of
keeping files and the cost of certain routine, repetitive activities have
been widely accepted. The first impression is that all activities in an
office can thus be measured against general standards.
This opinion, though widely held, is in error. Standards for paper-
work to be effective must be developed in terms of specific operations.
For example, the approval function in regard to passports was found
to require several standards: one for typical, uncomplicated cases,
one for technical cases requiring adjustment to the record, and a
third one for cases in which complicated and legal questions arose.
Part of the success of the Passport Office is traceable to the fact that
standards have been established in terms of the procedure itself and
are therefore effective.
Very rarely have GSA analysts found effective standards of quality
and production in estence in ederre. atjencies. This is not a Gov-
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ernment problem only. Standards in the highly professional sense
discussed here are rarely found in commercial offices as well. Large
steamship firms are notably deficient in this regard although they are
making rapid progress.
Lack of 'integrated approach
Ty-Pically, management is unaware of the interrelationships among
all the elements of an agency. Management thinks usually in terms
of broad program objective, and tends to find paperwork solutions
through methods which are piecemeal, opportunistic, firefighting, or
have other such limited characteristics. If paperwork is to be ap-
proached on an integrated basis, it must be seen as a system.
Paperwork clusters into systems. For example, there are pur-
chasing systems, transportation systems, justification systems,
accounting systems, reporting systems, and many others. While
these systems are interrelated they must also be considered as entities.
Some of the confusion as to the meaning of paperwork improvement
comes from a failure on the part of management to have a systems
approach.
In studying a system it is necessary to assemble, for purposes of
analysis, the entire jigsaw puzzle including every type of letter, every
form, every report, all the directives, all the files, all the scheduling
techniques, etc. It is then possible to flow chart a system, discover
its redundancies, inadequacies, and its technical failure.
Certainly automation should never be applied until a professional
study of the various systems and their various relationships have been
made.
Lack of proper organization structure
Few agencies have an adequate structure to solve paperwork prob-
lems. Usually the elements needed to do an adequate job are lacking
or so thoroughly separated that they cannot function as a unit. For
exa,mple, files and mail and forms are frequently with the administra-
tive services operation, while procedural analysis is inadequately
represented in a staff office.
Paperwork systems are in fact total data and processing systems
and cannot be efficiently separated from the standpoint of manage-
ment analysis. All the parts go together to form what might be
called an inventory of information as well as the processes by which
this information is applied. No matter how paperwork is viewed,
whether from the standpoints of mail, files, forms, directives, process-
ing, reporting, correspondence or any other standpoint, there is in fact
a unity. Classification and handling in one area affects all others.
Procedures in one affects the others. Error or delay in any one is
frequently disastrous to the others.
The advantages of giving the paperwork improvement element a
common boss are very real. So many forms are reports; so many
feeder reports are forms; so many procedures require a directive,
forms, and reports; any work in the correspondence field gets into mail;
any work in mail gets into forms and form letters; and so on. The real
relatedness, however, is their common procedural base. Only pro-
cedures give paperwork its rationale and only changes in procedures
makes possible paperwork cost reductions.
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CHAPTER VII. THE FUTURE
A CHANGING WORLD
From the experience of NARS and others engaged in the paperwork
program, it is possible to make the following general observations
about the immediate future:
1. The average work of the average office is capable of being
automated?and will be so within a relatively short time.
2. Automation continues to be generally poorly applied from the
standpoint of general systems. It often simply automates an existing
procedure without first eliminating any useless paperwork.
3. Too much emphasis is still being given to procuring large com-
puters, and not enough is being given to time sharing, and use of less
expensive, electromechanical equipment in the thoroughly integrated
systems such as source data automation provides.
4. Too many make-ready systems studies are still being done by
hardware manufacturers or hardware oriented personnel, and not
enough by records analysts who are soundly trained in management
data requirement, both as to input and output.
Developments now on the drawing board hold considerable promise
for time and cost reduction. The optical scanner will work wonders
in source data automation. Other machines in research may operate
directly from the spoken word. Standardization of data elements
and codes will produce greater management information. The com-
mittee has had repeatedly demonstrated to it how much the entire
economy relies on quantifiable data of all kinds. Everyone wants
more of such data, broken down finer and finer. For this data to be
manipulated and exploited by management in the most meaningful
fashion, it must be constantly updated, combined with other data,
and processed more speedily.
Over half of the technical assistance requested from NARS by
Federal agencies is to help them construct more valid and useful
management information systems. This will continue to be, for
many years to come, and open-ended field where all agencies have
much to learn and a great deal of experimentation is going on, partic-
ularly in applying the newer automated processing equipments to
management information systems.
COMPUTERS
The computer and the related peripheral equipment involved in
automation are changing the whole face of paperwork. The change
is gathering momentum and no one sees any slowdown in the pace
in the near future.
Because computers are so costly and their use must not be abused
or underused, both Government and industry have realized that
before computer hardware is selected?if any?extensive planning by
qualified systems analysts, both generalists and specialists, is needed
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if the full potential of automation is to be realized. Every agency
ought to make it quite clear that:
First. No system, function, or process in the agency will be
considered for automation on a computer unless it has been established
or reestablished as being essential.
Second. That any system, or major subsystem, or combinations of
systems being considered for automation on computers will be sub-
jected to critical analysis in depth and then be engineered in a fashion
that insures optimum efficiency and operational effectiveness.
Then third, and not before, consideration of the selection of specific
hardware becomes timely.
Top management can understand without difficulty the challenges
of input and output. The challenges of output are (1) whetter
management is really getting a record it can use and (2) whether the
record could not have been obtained as inexpensively by manual or
mechanical means. Answers to questions of these kinds can best be
found by feasibility studies.
The challenges of input are (1) whether the record is being put in
machine language at the earliest possible point in time, and (2)
whether the input record is being closely enough correlated to the
output record.
It is desirable therefore for each agency head to be promoting the
following approach:
1. Achieve active participation of top management in determining
information output requirements.
2. Enforce the use of common machine languages for input.
3. Require the recording at source only once and therefrom to
arrange and aggregate information to meet management needs.
4. Overcome the systems input development constraints that have
been imposed by organizational barriers.
5. Establish several central systems of related output data to be
interconnected by communication links.
.6. Establish a retrieval output system that can call forth data from
any or all data systems in a timely fashion.
7. Capitalize on simulation techniques and mathematical models for
tradeoff studies of alternative output solutions.
8. Impose cost effectiveness considerations on systems input de-
velopment.
Agencies need to move away somewhat from the preoccupation with
hardware savings toward a realistic assessment of "who needs to know
what," and, therefore, agencies should make data processing equip-
ment subservient to their systems design efforts which are focused on
the true needs of management for information.
To summarize that approach, within the past year, a few agencies
have formalized a systems development discipline that provides for
review at the Secretarial level at several key points during the develop-
ment process. As an initial part of this systems development disci-
pline, each major component of the agency is required to make an
annual submission of information systems plans for a 5-year period
so that these can be examined for compatibility and altered to elimi-
nate duplication. This and subsequent reviews assure that all major
data systems interface efficiently with others in being or in process of
development, ?and also prevent the proliferation of single-purpose
information systems. This discipline guarantees that resources are
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applied only after Secretarial approval of each phase of systems devel-
opment. Each major system must survive several reviews at the
Secretarial level prior to preparation of data systems specifications.
These in turn must be approved before release to equipment manu-
facturers. The major benefit expected to accrue from the thorough
review of systems during their formative stage is the generation of
more precise data systems specifications which form the basis of
vendors' proposals. This will contribute to a better understanding of
requirements by vendors and -will permit a more objective evaluation
of equipment proposals by the agency.
Now that a few other agencies are in the midst of the second stage
of data systems development, the need for active involvement of top
management, officials has been clearly recognized by the agency head
and his principal assistants. They have already progressed from the
solution of routine clerical tasks to actual- decisionmaking in such
areas as inventory management, production scheduling, and source
selection in the case of small dollar procurements. They now have
the opportunity to devise systems that will trigger corrective actions
before historical data would indicate the need for such actions. It
is in this area that top management must play an active part in
specifying the scope of information needs, in determining acceptable
variance parameters, and in interpreting the economic worth of infor-
mation that can be made available.
One way to view the potential of paperwork management is to look
at the Bureau of the Budget Inventory of Automatic Data Processing
Equipment. Machine operations now cost $550 million per year, and
are increasing at least $30 million a year. The National Archives
and Records Service believes that, at present, input costs (the paper-
work necessary to get data into machine language for storing and
processing) equals machine operating costs; $550 million thus repre-
sents the present cost of "input" to "feed" the machines, with the
expectation that it too will increase about $30 million a year.
Another way to view this problem is in terms of actual paper.
Agencies find that they spend $2 and $3 per page of average material
to prepare it for the machine (code, punch, verify, control, etc.).
At that rate $550 million would pay for automating less than 100,000
cubic feet (220 million pages) of the over 10 billion pages now being
produced annually.
Of the ways devised to decrease input costs, several have potential
for the future:
1. Greater use of character recognition scanners.
2. Direct feed-in from typewriters.
3. Greater emphasis upon byproduct tapes.
Clearly, the continued emergence of computers will affect the
handling of management information. What for years we have
called "report management" or "report control" is growing into a
more positive activity called data communications which permits
computer-to-computer networks, and therefore gives data systems a
potential we can only partially envision.
RESEARCH: KEY TO THE FUTURE
The latest figures compiled by the National Science Foundation
show that $23.3 billion per year is being spent for research by the
Federal Government, private industry, and the endowed foundations.
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Out of this amount only about $100 million is in the general area of
paperwork management. Nearly all of this is in the area of data
processing and digital computers, much of it by the companies which
manufacture and sell the equipment involved.
Yet about 10 million persons of the 70 million now employed, per-
form clerical work in offices. Office workers are the fourth largest
occupational group in the United States. This has led organizations,
like the Administrative Management Society, to say $100 million to
improve paperwork operations is too small a portion of the national
research budget.
The great advantage of funds well spent in the paperwork man-
agement area is that the results would have even greater utility to
private enterprise than to the Government because there are many
more officeworkers in private business.
A number of estimates have been made as to how much money is
being spent on paperwork management research by the Federal Gov-
ernment. They range from $3 to $5 million. The difficulty here is
that the amount is far too small, and the persons making the decisions
as to what projects to undertake do not reflect necessarily a consensus
of the Federal Government as to the research most needed. If a
more adequate screening process were in effect the Congress would
have greater assurance that the funds are being most wisely spent.
The committee views the possibility of a Federal center for research
in paperwork as the answer.
A Federal center for research in paperwork would maintain an over-
view of all paperwork research in the Federal Government; pure
research and applied research. In the area of pure research, the
Federal center might consider projects falling in the following
categories.
Classification and indexing procedures
One series of studies might be examining the derivation of automatic
and semiautomatic procedures for indexing, classifying, and abstract-
ing documents. Initial results have shown that mathematically
derived classification systems are useful in structuring large informa-
tion repositories. Researchers are now analyzing new sets of
documents to determine the realiability and consistency of factors
previously derived and reported. Machine?i.e., automatic?classi-
fication of documents into derived categories is being compared with
human classification.
As part of this series, work is already underway studying the feasi-
bility of representing the contents of files and libraries in association
maps and hierarchial maps. These representations, generated auto-
matically on the basis of computer analysis of word associations in
text, appear to have considerable promise as aids in information
retrieval.
Linguistics and communication analysis
A second series of projects might deal with linguistics and com-
munication analysis. A much-used device in natural language
discourse is the abbreviation of a long phrase in a given text sentence
by a single word or short phrase in a later sentence of the text. This
practice, while necessary for compact writing, produces difficulties in
the m.achi.ne. processing of language. On the basis of a study of
abbr6viathig plaiases in a large corpus of scientific writing, tentative
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rules have been formulated for recognizing certain kinds of abbreviat-
ing phrases and locating the phrases in preceding sentences which
they abbreviate. These rules need to be coded for incorporation
into mechanical paraphrasing and abstracting routines.
Fact retrieval
A third group of projects could include a study of "fact retrieval."
An attempt is now being made to ascertain the conditions at the inter-
face between man and computer that will permit human requesters
to communicate satisfactorily with a file of information elements.
If adequate man-machine symbiosis can be achieved, it should be
possible to supply the requester with the facts he needs, rather than
with the document containing these facts. Some of the aspects being
considered are the development of suitable request and storage lan-
guages, the formulation of complex information requests, and the
potential of joint human-computer resolution of these problems.
Natural language processing
Extremely difficult to develop are computer programs that can process
natural language information as if the meaning of the words were
understood. Nevertheless, the information management field needs
programs of this sort if it wishes to relieve the scientist, technician,
businessman or military commander of much of the burden of present
day information-handling procedures. A present research project,
known as Synthex, involves the development of computer programs
that will enable a computer to accept a question in natural language,
to analyze the syntax and the logical dependency relations of the ques-
tion, to perform the functions necessary in searching the memory
banks for the desired answer, and to output that answer in natural
language.
To simulate human language behavior on a machine, research is
needed which can describe what a human does when he is presented
with a question, finds or develops the answer from a relatively vast
body of intellectual experiences, and states that answer. Something
like this process has been systematized and translated into a complex
program of machine instructions. The program has operated success-
fully on several types of literature and is now undergoing additional
refinements to permit the drawing of inferences about information in
the file. The full application of such a capability is some years away.
The future of almost any management concept today depends on
the way research affects the doctrine. Research in the information
management field tends to embrace the four functional areas of
pattern recognition, lexical processing (subject matter logic), decision-
making, and encoding for communications and control.
Dr. Harold Wooster of the Air Force believes there are perhaps 13
research activities which seem most relevant to solving the problem.
He identifies them as follows:
1. Self-organizing systems, or intelligent automata.
2. Multidimensional and weighting function theories.
3. Research in the biological sciences pertaining to sensory percep-
tion, neural networks, and memory.
4. Research in psychological and social sciences pertaining to
intelligence and values.
5. Research in making computers self-programing (heuris)cl2
,
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HOW TO CUT PAPERWORK
41
6. Research in encoding of basic information sources.
7. Research in linguistics and languages.
8. Research toward better quantization of value judgments.
9. Research in theoretical foundations for concepts, such as infor-
mation, decision, recognition, and control.
10. Research in adaptive control systems.
11. Research in psychological and social sciences pertaining to
concepts of control of other than physical things, such as attitudes,
motivations, behavior.
12. Basic computer technology pertaining to high-speed, reliable
content analysis, storage and retrieval, decision processes, encoding
and decoding as a point of departure from high-speed arithmetic.
13. Basic technology pertaining to manifold increases in component
miniaturization categories.
Applied research can be oriented in a variety of ways: (1) to settle
agency differences on what should be standard practices; (2) to hasten
the development of equipment which would increase the productivity
of clerical work; (3) to provide a higher quality of supplies for office
use; and (4) to provide systems models which could be copied in
rapidly developing fields.
Without attempting anything other than a list of typical feasible
projects, the following have been frequently broached:
Recordkeeping
The National Bureau of Standards has an experimental area at
which it can simulate or enact any situation to test plumbing or heat-
ing materials, devices, and equipment. There is no "filing laboratory"
where the Government can run tests on finding, sorting, or classifying
papers. How much does shelf filing speed up retrieval? When does
terminal digit filing increase production? Do fifth-cut folder tabs
make filing more expensive than full-cut folders? When does phonetic
filing pay off? The records community has no scientifically deter-
minable answers to questions of this kind?questions which run into
the hundreds in number.
Copy life expectancy
How lonab is a paper copy made by the various copying techniques
readable? .What kinds of quality control can be insisted upon? How
long will magnetic tape, kalvar film, dry halide film, etc., last under
what conditions of use? Government archival and records operations
are hampered by not having reliable answers to questions of this kind.
Reduction in variety
Does the Government need to carry in stock as many differently
sized envelopes, blank paper, folders, and forms as it does, and what
would be the economics if the number were drastically reduced?
Failure to know these answers is the reason more isn't being done
about standardization.
Standard forms
Why does the Government have so few standard forms used across
agency lines, and what would be the precise, computable advantages
if more were standardized? Would some agency have to be given
more authority than desirable to bring this about? The answers
could mean dollars and cents savings.
fr, ?
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42 HOW TO CUT PAPERWORK
Common classification,
No thorough-going study has yet been made as to the fullest
practical use of integration of data by a common classification. No
one, single classification presently applies to all of the following
potential applications: Correspondence coding and filing, directives
coding and filing, forms coding, reports coding, mail routing, organi-
zation-unit coding, paperwork transaction coding, space occupancy,
and telephone numbering.
No one knows how far such classification can go with advantage.
Distribution of directives
Too many copies of directives are printed everywhere in Govern-
ment due to poor audience selection methods. Distribution research
would explore functional classification, descriptor devices, codified
user needs, user characteristics, up-dating master mailing lists, possi-
bilities of further mechanization, and the like.
The preceding kinds of applied research could mostly be done by
Government analysts in Federal facilities, once the funding were
arranged.
The above perhaps is enough to indicate how much projects would
vary in complexity and therefore would differ in the cost and length of
time it would take to bring each project to successful completion.
One of the present deficiencies in the Federal Government is that there
is no central clearinghouse on what types of paperwork management
research is currently being conducted by American industry. Since
the details of such research are zealously guarded for profit and
proprietary reasons?which is most understandable and as it should
be?nevertheless industry relies heavily on market studies to learn
whether to invest capital in some salable product. A Federal center
for research in paperwork could provide industry some information
of real value when industry is making market studies in depth.
Industry is almost blind when it comes to trying to guess whether a
product can be marketed in the Federal establishment. Salesmen are
constantly trying to sell items and articles to the Government which
the paperwork management personnel are trying to persuade their
superiors not to buy. It is a real cat-and-mouse game. The seller
would have benefited greatly from an analysis by a Federal center
telling him in advance what the strengths and drawbacks of his
commodity were.
Similarly much equipment and many supplies now on the market
could be improved. Federal users usually learn quickly what improve-
ments would be welcomed. A Federal center could play a most
helpful role in feeding to industry the comments of Federal users.
There is no reason to believe that the comments of Federal users would
be different from that of non-Federal users.
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CHAPTER VIII. RECOMMENDATIONS
BASIS
In May and June 1964 this committee held a series of hearings that
led to our "Federal Paperwork Jungle" report of February 18,
1965 (H. Rept. No. 52, 89th Cong., 1st sess.). There we made
some 33 recommendations for improving the situation.
In May 1966 we again held hearings to determine how well our
recommendations were being adopted and what new recommendations,
if any, were called for, or whether we needed to modify any earlier
conclusions. Also, in our 1964 hearings, we did not have the time
to review the special (and heavy) reporting requirements of all
agencies?especially the Department of Defense. The 1966 hearings
were designed to take care of this deficiency.
Based upon our continued studies, investigations, hearings, and
consultations, it is clear the Federal Government still is not meeting
the challenge we put to it in our February 18, 1965, report. The
recommendations which follow, therefore, should be considered as an
extension of the committee's previous recommendations and as a
strong reminder that departments and agencies have much yet to do
in improving their paperwork policies and practices.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. There should be a professional staff, fully trained and experienced in
paperwork management, available to heads of Federal agencies
Department and agency heads should give increased attention to
paperwork costs in time and money. They should, in accordance
with the Federal Records Act, support a vigorous and sustained
program for cutting paperwork costs.
The stakes are high. Even a 10-percent reduction would save over
half a billion dollars a year.
There are personnel which can be utilized. Some estimates are
that about 9,000 employees spend a majority of their time in organiza-
tion, planning and systems studies. A little reorientation and training
within this group should provide very adequately for the necessary
paperwork analysis and improvement. At least half of this staff
should have assignments to serve paperwork management needs.
2. Paperwork management should be used as a method of providing
. continuous oversight of Federal agency performance
Most administrators realize that problems should be solved early,
and preferably before they arise. To do this requires systematic
oversight. Paperwork management has proven to be a technique to
solve many operational problems very early. An illustration defining
the paperwork services which can contribute to this need, and showing
how oversight is accomplished,- is attached as appendix C.
43
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44 HOW TO CUT PAPERWORK
3. Heads of agencies should require regularly recurring reviews, on a
systems basis, of all of their major paperwork pipelines with a view
to (a) eliminating delays, (b) substantially reducing effort, and (c)
providing better service to the public
Departmental and agency management at all echelons should be
knowledgeable in the concepts and practice of sound paperwork man-
agement principles. They should thereby be able to direct and accept
paperwork management reviews in a manner which will be practical
and effective.
Conditions under which programs work are continually changing.
Even very good systems, after the lapse of 1 or 2 years, need to be re-
viewed. Successful review?which should be annual in frequency at
least?requires that all echelons of management be knowledgeable and
capable of useful participation.
4. Heads of agencies should aggressively maintain a proper climate of
teamwork and cooperation between analysts, on the one hand, and
activities they serve, on the other
The single greatest deterrent to paperwork improvement, other than
lack of knowledge, is a fear of criticism. To improve one's operation
is also to criticize how it has been done in the past. Only beads of
agencies are in a position to give effective leadership in this regard.
They can establish the policy that it is a virtue to improve, and that
failure to change with the time is not condoned.
5. All agencies should improve the paperwork processes used to provide
key data to agency heads and thew subordinates
It has been widely noted that agency heads have great difficulty
"keeping in touch." Paperwork systems and reporting methods fre-
quently serve as screening devices to intercept data relating to prob-
lems and to emphasize generalities.
Few agency heads have useful indexes of progress. Very few have
early warning of problems.
Data are provided to agency heads and their responsible officers
in such quantity as to be almost meaningless. Yet, the few key data
needed for direction and planning are usually missing or derived by
individual officials through their own observation and analysis.
Good management demands a complete review of this area, con-
centrating on the paperwork system which should supply the missing
key data.
6. Fewer but better records should be produced by Federal agencies
At present, there are 13 million cubic feet of records in Federal
agencies. This is equivalent to over 3 years of accumulation.
Heads of agencies should take immediate steps to reduce these hold-
ings by one-third. Certainly, an average of 2 years' accumulation
in active office space is sufficient, considering the existence of orga-
nized storage areas, especially the Federal Records Center.
The second step should be to improve the quality of the records
being accumulated. Certainly permanent and nonpermanent records
should not be intermixed so that nonpermanent records are kept for
unnecessarily long periods.
Also, "permanent" records should be reappraised. It is possible,
based upon NARS studies, to reduce this category drastically.
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7. The burden of paperwork imposed on the citizens by our Government
should be greatly reduced
Heads of agencies should require that their personnel weigh care-
fully the needs for paperwork against the cost involved to citizens
(and to their own agencies).
Many instances have been noted where a ratio of $2 is spent for
every $1 of value to the Government. There are better systems and
better means of achieving the ends. These systems and means should
be searched out. Any value to the Government which costs more to
establish than is realized should be abandoned without delay.
8. Better interagency paperwork processes should be developed as a
Government-'wide project beginning immediately
Almost all programs, but especially programs relating to urban
problems have a relationship to another governmental agency pro-
gram. Much work is redone for lack of better interagency procedures.
This is costly and time consuming.
Most citizens and citizen groups find that they must deal with more
than one Federal agency for projects in which they become involved
(education, civic improvements, welfare, etc.). Applications fre-
quently become inactive because of failure to transfer jurisdiction or
may be acted upon more than once. Certainly, more than one set
of rules and procedures is usually involved.
Agencies tend to honor each other's sphere of activity, and do not
take steps to standardize and clarify issues.
The facilities of the National Archives and Records Service are
available to make, or consult in relation to, such projects.
The committee plans to inquire formally and informally into
progress of heads of Federal agencies in establishing better inter-
agency procedures.
9. Paperwork implication of legislation should be reviewed by the heads
of all agencies so that appropriate remedies can be made by the
Congress
Legislation frequently contains paperwork requirements, intentional
and unintentional. Many governmental systems now suffer from
past legislation which prescribed methods no longer applicable or used
terms which imply unnecessary records or legal adjudication. Ex-
amples are found in shipping forms prescribed by law, such terms as
"owner" (implying a need for legal determination), and special types
of reports.
Department and agency heads should search out and identify such
legislation for purpose of correction.
The precedent of such agencies, as the Department of Labor
(which recently proposed a change which will save over $100,000 a
year), should be studied.
This committee will aid in any such improvement. Also, the
resources of NARS can be made available to assist in studies of this
nature.
10. Special emphasis should be given to applying source data automation
methods aimed at reducing the cost of using computers
Cost of input to computers has been stressed in previous chapters.
The techniques of capturing data at its source into machine language
will save much of this cost. Also, many of the simpler automation
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46 HOW TO CUT PAPERWORK
needs of individual offices would be taken care of through adequate
SDA applications.
There are workshops, guidebooks, and survey assistance available
to aid heads of agencies to make better use of SDA.
11. Greater support should be given to the National Archives and Records
Service program
This recommendation repeats and emphasizes the recommendations
this committee made in 1965 (The Federal Paperwork Jungle, H.
Rept. No. 52, dated Feb. 18, 1965, p. 106), as follows:
"The records management program of the National Archives and
Records Service of the General Services Administration should be
vigorously supported by the Congress and in the executive branch
and should be expanded in the areas of paperwork simplification,
standardization, and research. Individual departments and agencies
should strengthen their records management in accordance with
suggestions made in this report."
12. Professional training and refresher courses should be established, as
part of the civil service training and career development programs,
to assure a high level of competence among paperwork analysts
Definitions of responsibilities and actual practice of paperwork
management functions in Government leave much to be done. There
is a real need to provide a training program.
The program should consist of (a) annual refresher courses for anal-
ysts to acquaint them with new developments in the profession, and
(b) basic courses to assure adequate foundation for professional paper-
work management assistance within agencies.
13. A broad-gaged, organized program of research into all fields of paper-
work practices and systems should be authorized and financed during
the coming fiscal year
No organized governmental program covering research into paper-
work systems now exists.
The committee feels that full-scale research programs at a $500,000
level should be authorized and financed during this fiscal year. A
Federal center for research in paperwork should be considered.
14. Productivity standards for clerical employees should be developed
without delay, with first priority of emphasis being given to clerical
processes related to the computer technology
Clerical productivity has lagged far behind that of factory workers.
Some of this lag has been due to a failure to improve equipment.
With the advent of automation, equipment support for office activ-
ities has greatly increased.
However, very little has been done to establish appropriate clerical
standards, largely because of difference in systems. These differences
are probably inherent in office activities.
In view of the conclusions summarized above, it is necessary for
agency heads to develop realistic productivity standards for each major
step in each paperwork system. From this base, it will be possible
to (a) set goals and improve performance, and (b) uncover procedural
steps which are unduly costly.
Office productivity requires that standards of performance be estab-
lished as early as possible, and that system studies be made to assure
that low productivity steps are improved. Improvement will come
from better systems and better use of automationt; emzeZat source
data automation.
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APPENDIX
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APPENDIX A. PARTIAL LIST OF PAPERWORK IMPROVE-
MENTS MADE BY FEDERAL AGENCIES
NOTE.?An interesting evidence of agency activity in saving
paperwork, is the recently established annual awards for paperwork
achievements sponsored by the American Management Society. The
ceremonies are recognized and scheduled by the Civil Service Com-
mission. The two awards ceremonies held thus far have honored
over 40 agency analysts and managers. The dollar benefits derived
by the Federal Government from the group so honored has totaled
almost $200 million.
TREASURY, COMMERCE, AND JUSTICE
To indicate Presidential interest in paperwork, early this year the
President wrote:
Some of our brightest opportunities in research and devel-
opment lie in the less obvious and often neglected parts of
our transportation system.
We spend billions for constructing new highways, but com-
paratively little for traffic control devices.
We spend millions for fast jet aircraft, but little on the
traveler's problem of getting to and from the airport.
We have mounted a sizable government-industry program
to expand exports, yet we allow a mountain of redtape
paperwork to negate our efforts. Worldwide, a total of
810 forms are required to cover all types of cargo imported
and exported. In this country alone, as many as 43 separate
forms are used in 1 export shipment. Eighty separate forms
may be needed to process some imports. This is paperwork
run wild.
I am directing the Secretaries of Treasury and Commerce
and the Attorney General to attack these problems, through
the use of effective systems research programs. And I have
directed them to eliminate immediately unnecessary elements
of redtape that inhibit our import and export programs.'
This is an example of how paperwork clusters about a system that
reaches into a number of agencies and performs a variety of tasks.
It also involves a sizable portion of the public. Some of the major
types of paperwork involved have been:
(a) Coast Guard shipping articles
The shipping articles consist of a 12-part interleaved snap-out
carbon form (the size is 15 by 30 inches) and 9 other forms. Files
are maintained in the carriers' office, onboard ship, Coast Guard
headquarters, and at each field office. The size and complexity of
the forms necessitates manual procedures and handling. Installation
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49
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50 HOW TO CUT PAPERWORK
of the NARS proposed system will: (a) eliminate an estimated 10
persons in the Division of Merchant Vessel Personnel, (b) reduce the
number of forms from 12 to 2, and (c) reduce the time required to
engage and discharge seamen substantially.
(b) Bureau of Customs vessel registration
Here some 25 oversized and nonstandard forms (filed in separate
binders) will be replaced with 2 forms (an application and a certificate
of registry?both of which are standard 8 by 10%-inch forms). All
the existing files will be replaced with a vessel folder bringing together
all vessel papers into a single folder. The folder, filed by vessel
name, will eliminate the need for locator card files and numerous
binders that house vessel documents.
(c) Bureau of Customs entry and clearance of vessels
A recommended entry/clearance certificate has been referred to the
United Nations (intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organiza-
tion) by the United States. There are 16 different forms covering
entry and clearance required by Customs, Public Health, Agriculture,
and Immigration and Naturalization Service. A way to satisfy the
agencies can come from a single form (size 8 by 10y2 inches). Also,
part of the information received on the maritime vessel utilization
report, Coast Guard shipping articles and Immigration (1-418 and
1-94) can be obtained from the recommended certificate.
(d) Maritime Administration ocean bill of lading
There were 400 to 600 individual bill of lading formats in use in the
United States. There were two Government documents required on
exports. These two forms were not compatible with the bill of lading
formats. In addition, there are as many as 27 other documents
required on export shipments. With the assistance of the east and
west coast industry associations, it was possible to design a bill of
lading format to replace the 400 to 600 different forms in use and make
the new B/L format compatible with the 2 Government documents
and the 27 industry forms. This approach reduced the typing for
export shipments from 29 to a single reproducible master. From the
master, all necessary documents in the desired number of copies can
be reproduced. The estimated savings from this approach are about
$8 million.
The standard ocean bill of lading is completed and is in use. How-
ever, the United States has been meeting with the Economic Com-
mission for Europe (ECE) and the International Standards Organi-
zation (ISO) to seek a possible international bill of lading. This
would permit through shipments from point of origin to destination
without costly intermediate documentation.
(e) Maritime Administration, dictionary of standard commodity de-
scriptions
The dictionary is a technique developed by NARS to write standard
commodity descriptions for an estimated 150,000 commodities
representing 95 percent of regular shipments. A description would
consist of a restricted number of descriptions starting with the most
generic and then adding enough information about the commodity
to satisfy the Government and industry requirements to move the
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HOW TO CUT PAPERWORK
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goods. Each description would have its own code for data processing
to permit storage of the descriptions and to make it possible to sort
the descriptions manually or mechanically into the principal trade
classifications (i.e., schedule B, Census Classification, Standard
International Trade Classification (SITC), Brussel Tariff Nomen-
clature (BTN), Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)).
(f) Federal Maritime Commission, ocean freight tariff automation
FMC is in the process of writing rules, developing the forms, and
a commodity coding system to require the ocean shipping carriers
(foreign and U.S. flag) to file their freight rate tariffs with the Com-
mission. NARS recommended a coding system for the tariffs to
reduce the effort and aline the system with the U.N.'s Standard
International Trade Classification as well as the Census Bureau
Schedule B, Export Classification System. This approach would
permit carriers to rate bills of lading and document shipments with
the same commodity description. Present operations require at
least two different descriptions.
(g) Maritime Administration vessel utilization reporting system
A new vessel utilization reporting system has been designed and
installed by Marad. The system combines four reports into a single
form. Previously, inbound data was reported on one form and out-
bound on another. The new procedure increases reliability of data
for carriers and the Government. The new form is precoded for data
processing, making it possible to have reliable data available months
(in some instances, 8 to 12 months) ahead of the previous system.
The new system, 90 percent of which is accomplished on ADP equip-
ment, eliminated all of the manual manipulation performed by the
Office of Statistics. The Trade Route Division of that Office was
transferred to the Office of Government Aid and the rest of the office
was abolished.
At present, Marad has five key-punch operators at Coast Guard to
obtain data needed. These data, as well as more complete data will
be obtained as a byproduct from the revised "Shipping Articles Study"
that NARS is doing for Coast Guard.
(h) General Accounting Office and General Services Administration
Government bill of lading
At present, Government shipments move under Government bills
of lading shipping instructions. Also, each mode of transportation
documents the shipment using their paperwork in addition to the
GBL. NARS has recommended that the format of the GBL be
alined with the national standard ocean bill of lading and be printed
on a reproducible master to avoid retyping the same data for each
mode of transportation.
Final adoption is pending on the outcome of a bill in the House of
Representatives to eliminate the law which prohibits prepayment of
freight charges. If the law is eliminated, GBL's will no longer be
needed. On the other hand, if the law is not changed, the format
of the GBL will be alined with the national standard ocean bill of
lading.
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NAVY DEPARTMENT
The Department initiated a comprehensive review of reports and
forms on August 10, 1964. A summary by the Secretary (see below)
notes the elimination of 12.1 percent of the total number of reports
and 14.6 percent of forms used throughout the entire Department.
Additionally, it shows that participating activities improved a total of
8,460 reports and forms by reducing frequency, respondents, items to
be submitted, etc. A key figure on the summary is the estimated
annual man-hours released, 5,253,205. The totality of these savings
will be realized?and the manpower redirected?only if there is
effective followup. A notice was issued in July 1965, to all Navy
ships and stations stating that all commanding officers were to
initiate actions to assure that the decisions to eliminate, reduce, or
improve reports and forms were put into effect.
Item
Total
Percent
Reports
Percent
Forms
Percent
Reviewed
158,846
35,565
123,281
Estimated annual workload, man-hours _ _
84,
682, 460
21,825, 150
62,
857,310
Eliminated
22,286
14. 0
4,305
12. 1
17,981
14. 6
Improved
8,460
5.3
1,664
4. 6
6,796
5. 5
Estimated annual man-hours released__ _
5,
253, 205
6.2
1, 473, 369
6. 7
3,
779,836
6. 0
Other benefits (material, equipment,
space, machine hours, etc.)
691,852
320, 256
371, 596
Recommendations made to other organi-
zations to eliminate or improve
6,239
353,323
161,916
Estimated annual man-hours releasable__ _
518, 702
355, 121
163, 581
NAVY AND MARINE CORPS
Project SCRAP? commenced its paperwork reduction activities in
the Navy and Marine Corps on July 1, 1964. A summary report from
the Office of the Navy Inspector General on December 4, 1964, indi-
cated the following achievements:
1. The pruning of directives files at the individual command level
throughout the service had resulted in elimination of 18,402 directives
(8.3 percent of the total number in effect), and the improvement of
22,552.
2. Reduced the allowances of naval tactical doctrine publications
held unnecessarily by the operating forces by 15,300 copies. This
reduces preparation and printing costs and manpower required to enter
changes, as well as space requirements.
3. Initiated a revised instruction for the operation of the Navy
directives system.
4. Prescription of a new Navy standard letter form to reduce effort
and cost.
5. The collection of data from several fleet units to determine the
feasibility of automating reports at that level.
6. Receipt of large numbers of profitable suggestions from personnel
throughout the fleet in response to SCRAP's personnel suggestion
campaign for reducing paperwork.
7. Continued progress in efforts in a large number of areas promising
to lead to a reduction of reporting and paperwork requirements.
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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
53
In 1964 the Department held its first departmentwide review of
reports. That review was required by Secretary's Memorandum No.
1559 and included all reports submitted to our national offices. The
Department later completed a second phase of the review which
included those reports required by State or comparable level
organizations.
As a result of these 2 reviews, 318 reports were eliminated and 300
others improved. The total savings realized from these actions was
$630,296. This figure did not include the value of improvements to 34
USDA reports made since the end of the first review.
A summary of agency eliminations during these reviews is given
below:
Agency
Reports eliminated
by?
Savings reported
by?
Total
savings
National
office
Field
office
National
office
Field
office
Agricultural Research Service
9
18
$25, 500
$23, 068
$48, 568
Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service
38
58
134,556
32,010
166, 566
Commodity Exchange Authority
Consumer and Marketing Service
11
28,974
28, 974
Cooperative State Research Service
Economic Research Service
Foreign Agricultural Service
3
54, 628
54, 628
Federal Crop Insurance Corporation
1
1, 157
1, 157
Farmer Cooperative Service
1,162
1, 162
Federal Extension Service
2
3
4,425
5,100
5,925
Farmers Home Administration
2
3
2,634
2,807
5,531
Forest Service
7
75
89, 111
55, 182
144,293
International Agricultural Development Service
National Agricultural Library
31
3, 719
3,719
Office of Management Services
4,000
4,000
Rural Community Development Service
Rural Electrification Administration
11
10,206
10,206
Soil Conservation Service
4
26
6,746
42, 790
49,536
Statistical Reporting Service
All staff offices
16
106,031
106,031
Total
135
183
472, 849
157,447
630,296
Total
318
I
AGRICULTURE
In September 1965, the Department surveyed all forms originated
in USDA down to and including State or comparable levels. The
survey called for information concerning the extent of forms control
capability and data on numbers of forms added, revised, and in use,
among other items. The Department encouraged the review of
individual forms and suggestions to take place during the survey.
In February 1966, the results of the survey were published. The
survey indicated the use of approximately 59,000 different forms in
the Department. Some 12,000 of these were Washington forms;
47,000 were field forms. Printing costs for these forms exceeded $2.4
million Accepting the total cost of a form to be 20 times its printing
cost, the Department's estimated investment would be about $48
million each year for work involving forms.
The survey additionally revealed:
1. Less than one-half of their agencies conducted training in
forms work either in Washington or the field.
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54 HOW TO CUT PAPERWORK
2. Almost 80 percent of the total forms were developed at the
field level. Only one agency had full-time trained analysts at
that level. In other agencies, personnel with limited forms ex-
perience were developing most of the Department's forms.
3. Almost 35 percent of the field forms were uncontrolled,
implying that these forms were designed and put into use by
people with no forms training.
4. There were a total of 30.8 full-time man-years devoted to
forms analysis in Washington and the field. Five agencies ac-
counted for 29 of these man-years. There appeared to be a
relationship between the number of full-time man-years devoted
to forms and the number of Washington and field controlled forms
in existence Similarly the number of full- or part-time man-years
available in the field appeared to relate to the number of uncon-
trolled forms in existence.
5. Two agencies appeared to have a disproportionate number
of field forms as compared to the number of forms which were
standardized agencywide.
These facts, and the summary of findings, were brought to the heads
of Department agencies, with the statement that they study the
results of the survey in light of their own commitments to their forms
programs and offering to help and support any agency needing
assistance.
DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR
In 1964 the Bureau of Land Management established a subject
classification functional listing with numerical codes for every Bureau
activity. They then reorganized everything that the Bureau does in
the form of paper to tie into this functional listing. This included
the manual system, all Bureau regulations in the Code of Federal
Regulations, forms, letters, memorandums, information booklets, and
all publications. The system thereby provided for use of the same
subject classification coding in any document that the Bureau issued.
The public, as well as the Bureau personnel accepted the new system
readily without reservations and since the installation, in late 1964,
the system has had no major problems and has worked exceedingly
well, especially at the field level. The Bureau has converted about
5,000 directives pages since installation of this system which applies
to about 125 field installations as well as the headquarters office.
FEDERAL AVIATION AGENCY
Between 1965 and 1966, the FAA installed a new audience-oriented
directives0 checklisting (cataloging) system for all FAA directives
issued at every level of the Agency. The result is a series of checklists
in the hands of all the different field audiences which permit them for
the first time to accurately and reliably maintain and readily use
their directives files. The product was achieved with a net reduction
of nearly 2 million catalog pages a year and an anticipated 3.5 million
page one-time cleanout of directives files.
There are 45,000 employees of the FAA who are affected. These
employees also deal with the public and require accurate, current,
and reliable instructions for such relations.
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55
Each field office of FAA quarterly receives a list of all directives
issued by headquarters, regional offices and area offices which apply
to that office. Each list is tailored to match both the office's func-
tional and organizational needs. This provides a means for each
field office to quickly verify the completeness and currency of their
directives. The verification cost is approximately $31,000 per quarter
in clerical man-time in approximately 1,750 field offices. Previous
verification was estimated at $176,000 per quarter.
Through reduction in irrelevant directives, reference time has been
simplified, estimated on the basis of one reference per clay in each
field office, to amount to a savings in 1 year of 9,000 man-hours or
$50,000 of professional man-time.
SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
The Small Business Administration started an intensive campaign
for directives improvement in January 1962. The first concern was
that the field personnel were not following the instructions issued by
Washington. Based on a sampling of 150 directives (of 100 words
each) there was a fog index of 23, i.e., in order to understand them one
would need to be a college graduate with 7 years of postgraduate work.
With the full support of the Assistant Administrator for Management,
who had the support of the Administrator, the SBA established a
mandatory requirement that no directive be issued with a fog index of
more than 12, i.e., require no more than the understanding of a high
school senior. They made only one exception for highly technical
material which could reach an index of 14, or be understandable to a
sophomore in college. To monitor the program they used one pro-
fessional writer who had 10 years of reviewing experience. By apply-
ing the regulation first to one office they proved that controlling the
fog index could be done. Their proof was presented to the Adminis-
trator's staff. They then arranged for NARS to provide the directives
management workshop to 120 Washington employees. Several
hundred copies of the booklet "How To Take the Fog Out of Writing"
were given to Washington and field office writers. The mandatory
requirement was dropped after 2 years. Recent checks indicate that
the fog index still averages 14.
During the intensive campaign to reduce the fog index, all directives
material was channeled to a central control division. This has
continued. The division also receives a copy of all materials repro-
duced. This exemplifies the results that can be achieved when a
program has top support within an agency.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Reports improvement program, 1964-66-49,608 reports eliminated,
1,760 reports simplified, 22,120 reports consolidated, and 280 reports
reduced in frequency.
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HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE; GENERAL SERVICES ADMINIS-
TRATION; BUREAU OF STANDARDS, COMMERCE; NATIONAL AERO-
NAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION; AGRICULTURE; BUREAU OF
CENSUS, COMMERCE; TREASURY
Each of the above agencies has held a "records cleanout," between
January 1963 and June 1966. The "cleanout," as the term suggests,
is a short-term campaign to dispose of unneeded records, publications,
and reference materials. Sending records to records centers becomes
a form of disposition. The campaigns are meant to free prime space
and equipment.
In addition, Federal executive boards in several cities have sponsored
records clean outs in their areas as part of their program to encourage
general administrative improvements. "Operation Purge" in Chicago,
completed in June 1966, is typical. About 60,000 cubic feet of records
were transferred or destroyed and about 9,200 filing cabinets were
cleared. In Atlanta, during calendar year 1965, a FED-sponsored
drive resulted in the transfer or destruction of about 26,000 cubic feet
of records and the clearing of about 3,500 filing cabinets.
Since part of the campaign is a score-keeping phase, agencies which
stage "cleanouts" know the kind of results they obtain for their
effort. Every agency which has so far held a "cleanout" campaign
reports exceptional benefits for the energy expended. The following
table depicts the principal benefits:
Volume
Volume
File
Reduction
Agency
destroyed
transferred
cabinets
in agency
(cubic feet)
(cubic feet)
released
holdings
(percent)
Health, Education, and Welfare (1963)
23, 500
7,300
946
4. 0
General Services Administration (1964)
11, 712
11, 693
1, 802
23. 0
Bureau of Standards (1965)
8, 000
1, 600
1, 280
25. 0
General Services Administration (1965)
22, 679
24, 738
3, 526
33. 0
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1965)_
38, 589
3,657
898
19.3
Agriculture (1966)
79, 395
25, 072
13, 928
11. 0
Bureau of the Census (1966)
14, 292
2,791
100
16.0
Treasury
51, 727
41, 553
8. 5
VETERANS' ADMINISTRATION
"Project 100 Forms" is the Veterans Administration's title for a
cost reduction effort in the forms management area. Especially, the
project identified the 100 forms which have the highest annual cost.
This select group of forms was then subjected to a close study of all
extra-cost features. The objective was to reduce printing costs or
effect other economies.
The first phase of the project published a tabulation of VA's 100
most expensive forms ranked in descending order of annual cost.
This top group out of some 4,000 standardized forms and form letters
accounted for an annual expenditure of $888,000 or 44 percent of a
$2 million total outlay for forms. This served to focus attention on a
very significant item of expense.
The next step was an item-by-item analysis of all extra cost features.
While this varied form to form, the starting place was generally a
comparison with base printing costs, which will give some indication
of what the extras are costing. This phase required the joint efforts
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57
of forms technicians, management analysts, and operating people.
Nothing was exempt from consideration?usage patterns, construction,
even the procedure back of the form may come in for questioning.
VETERANS' ADMINISTRATION
In 1965 a mail study to reduce costs and improve service in the
Veterans' Administration proved to be notable. As a result of a
concerted effort, $350,000 was saved in postage costs and $110,000
was realized from reduced salaries. The above savings resulted
from restricting the use of registered mail, airmail, special delivery,
certified mail, establishing blanket mail envelopes for 240 field opera-
tions, and mailing insurance notices once a year instead of monthly.
Many similar improvements have been made in other agencies?
Labor Department; Maritime Administration, Commerce Depart-
ment; and Bureau of Customs, Treasury Department are a few good
examples.
TREASURY
In the Division of Disbursement, Bureau of Accounts, the elimina-
tion of paper check issue records in favor of microfilm has resulted in
very significant tangible savings and operational improvements.
1. Cumulative savings in personal services and materials costs since
1950 aggregate over $2.5 million
2. A tremendous reduction in storage space requirements has been
attained. If paper check copies were being used today, an additional
60,000 square feet of space would be needed at an annual cost of over
$250,000. Cumulatively since 1950, savings in the cost of space
would total more than $2 million.
3. The speed of recording check issue records has increased 70 times
since 1950. This, by itself, is of significant help in handling large
workloads.
4. Serviceability of check issue records improved almost beyond
comparison. Searching time has been reduced by over 80 percent.
5. The durability or lasting qualities of microfilm far exceed that
of paper when it is subjected to consistent use.
6. The flexibility that microfilm offers as compared to paper records
is most important. Microfilm is relatively easy and economical to
reproduce and transport.
: The use of microfilm in the Division of Disbursement has had a
profound effect on productivity. In fiscal year 1949, one employee
could, in effect, completely process 61,000 checks a year. (Total
checks issued divided by total paid man-years.) In fiscal year 1965,
1 employee completely processed 299,000 checks, or five times as
many as in 1949. The elimination of paper check issue records in
favor of microfilm, and consistent improvement of the microfilming
techniques, contributed in no small measure to this increase in
productivity.
Employee output has increased at an average rate of 10.5 percent
each year since 1949. In terms of total costs, productivity has in-
creased, during this same period, at an average rate of 7.2 percent.
1
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TREASURY DEPARTMENT
The Internal ? Revenue Service is now producing on microfilm the.
business taxpayer directory, index, and settlement data listings. This
comes as a further refinement to the automation of tax returns.
Microfilm is centrally produced at the -National Computer Center,
Martinsburg, W. Va., and distributed to all using offices.
Film production is accomplished at 12 times the speed of paper list
printing; and use of film reduces record storage space by 90 percent,
record weight by 95 percent, and information retrieval time by 50
percent. Print. time saved in each service center has been reflected
in reduced computer time requirements, and space savings have re-
lieved to some extent the space shortages in the Chamblee and Phila-
delphia service centers. Total annual savings of 4 man-years and
$278,700 are the annual benefit.
POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT
Almost 100,000 man-days were saved by the Post Office Department
through an improved system of reporting work hours. Almost
equivalent savings are anticipated from newly simplified paperwork
procedures now being tested and installed. These new projects
include personnel. processing (source data automation application),
mobile postal activities (reporting and recording), and claims process-
ing (procedures and correspondence). Other studies recently begun
in Seattle, Portland, and Kansas City show great promise.
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APPENDIX B. EXAMPLES OF BENEFITS TO FEDERAL
AGENCIES FROM CORRESPONDENCE WORKSHOPS
AGRICULTURE
Verbiage reduced 40 percent. Rewrites decreased 20 percent. Ninety
percent of letters answered within 5 days. Farmers Home Adminis-
tration, St. Louis.
Letters now average 12 to 15 typed lines instead of 23 to 29 lines.
Dictation and transcription time reduced about 17 percent, annual
savings of 625 man-hours. Farmers Home Administration, Atlanta.
Rewrites cut in half, secondary reviews nearly eliminated, except
on policy matters. Agricultural Research Service, Albany, Calif.
Length of letters reduced by 20 percent, resulting in estimated
savings 01 1,500 man-hours annually. Forest Service, San Francisco.
Verbiage reduced 25 percent.
Headquarters, St. Louis.
Verbiage reduced 20 percent.
nance Command, St. Louis.
Verbiage reduced 25 percent.
St. Louis.
ARMY
Fifth Army Area Support Center,
Transportation Supply and Mainte-
Engineer District, Corps of Engineers,
GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION
Quality of letters increased 50 percent, rate of production increased
20 percent. Regional office, Denver.
? INTERIOR
Reviewing time reduced 30 percent, signer's reading time decreased
20 percent, rewrites cut 10 percent, and followup and explanatory
correspondence reduced 50 percent. Bureau of Reclamation Regional
Office, Denver.
U.S. COAST GUARD
Verbiage reduced 10 percent. Second District, St. Louis.
U.S. COURTS
Letters shortened 25 to 30 percent (26,000 letters a year). Pre-
sentence reports running 10 to 12 pages reduced by at least 1 or 2
pages. Federal Probation Training Center, U.S. Probation Office,
Chicago.
VETERANS' ADMINISTRATION
Correspondence workload reduced 10 percent by elimination of
56,400 followup letters a year as result of improved? clarity and sim-
plicity in original letters; 3,600 man-hours saved a year (transcrip-
'.... 59
, 71'
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tion only) due to shorter, simpler letters. Dictator now getting 15
letters instead of 4 on dictating disk. Regional office, Nashville.
Verbiage reduced 50 percent and 94 percent of letters now answered
within 5 days. Regional office, St. Louis.
NEW FORM. OR GUIDE LETTERS DEVELOPED
AGRICULTURE
?
8,000 letters formerly dictated or handwritten replaced by form
and.guide letters. Commodity Stabilization Service, Chicago.
12 new form letters will save approximately 6,000 dictated letters
annually. Commodity Stabilization Service, Portland.
ARMY
10- new form letters developed, 3 revised, replacing 10,560 letters a
year. Engineer District, Corps Engineers, New York.
10 new form letter's developed, replacing 6,400 letters a year.
Ordn'ance Corps, Watervliet Arsenal, N.Y.
32 new form letters developed, 11 revised, replacing 48,000 letters a
year. Headquarters, 1st Army, Governors Island, N.Y. ?
7 additional form letters developed, replacing 19,200 letters a year.
Training Center, Fort Dix, N.J.
25 new form letters developed, replacing 13,000 letters annually.
Post headquarters, Fort Meade, Md.
60 new and 15 revised form letters developed, replacing 60,000
letters a year. Fifth Army Area Support Center, headquarters,
St. Louis.
40 additional form letters developed replacing 60,000 letters'a year.
Transportation Supply and Maintenance Command, St. Louis.
DEFENSE
5 new form letters developed, replacing 11,000 letters a year. 35
new guide letters developed, replacing 50,000 letters a year. U.S.
Armed Forces Institute, Madison, Wis. *
,
GENERAL SERVICES, ADMINISTRATION
28 form letters developed with annual usage estimated at 21,500.
Regional office, Dallas.
16 new form letters developed, replacing 12,324 letters a year.
Regional offide, Atlanta.
INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE
4,000 form and guide letters in 10 District offices being congolidated
into 350 standardized, letters. Regional office, San Francisco.
16 new form letters, 7 new guide letters developed, replacing 20,600
letters a year. District office, Syracuse. ,
18 new form letters, 1 new guide letter developed, replacing 57,000
letters a year; 34 form letters revised. District office, Albany, N.Y.
4,0)2
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61
,JUSTICE
Standard paragraphs being developed for recurring language in
court pleadings to minimize dictation. U.S. Attorney's Office,
Spokane.
POST OFFICE
? Most of correspondence regarding hire of Christmas employees now
handled by form and guide letters. U.S. Post Office, Seattle.
RAILROAD RETIREMENT BOARD
5 form letters, 7 new 'guide letters developed, replacing 4,800 letters
per year. Regional office, New York.
SELECTIVE SERVICE SYSTEM
- 8 new guide letters will .save preparation of 12,000 dictated letters
a year. State office, Portland.
'STATE
?
Through improved form and guide letters, dictating time reduced
from 4 hours daily to 1 hour, correspondence backlog eliminated.
Passport Agency, San Francisco..
U.S. COAST GUARD
50 new form letters developed, replacing 5,000 letters annually.
First District Headquarters, Boston.
VETERANS' ADMINISTRATION
Proportion of form and guide letters increased from 70 to 90 percent
of all correspondence written through new guide letters and pattern
paragraphs. Regional office, Syracuse.
FORM OR GUIDE LETTERS ELIMINATED
ARMY
6 form letters with an annual usage of 6;000 eliminated, saving
900 man-hours. Transportation Terminal Command, Fort Mason,
San Francisco.
COPIES OF CORRESPONDENCE ELIMINATED
AGRICULTURE
60,000 extra copies eliminated per year. Farmers Home Adminis-
tration, St. Louis.
3,000 copies eliminated a year. Commodity Stabilization Service,
Chicago.
ARMY
One copy of most outgoing correspondence eliminated; about 60,000
pieces a year. Headquarters, 1st Army, Governors Island, N.Y.
?
.1.. tr
r . r
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Preparation of extra copies reduced by 200,000 annually. Engineer
district, Corps Engineers, New York.
200,000 copies eliminated annually, Transportation Supply and
Maintenance Command, St. Louis.
100,000 extra copies eliminated per year. Engineer district, Corps
Engineers, St. Louis.
50,000 copies eliminated a year. Post Headquarters, Fort Meade,
Md.
35,000 copies eliminated annually by cutting out one copy on out-
going correspondence. Letterman Army General Hospital, San Fran-
cisco.
36,000 reading file copies discontinued. 10,000 file copies eliminated
annually by use of one form letter. Engineer district, Corps Engi-
neers, Seattle.
INTERIOR
15,000 extra copies of correspondence eliminated. Bonneville
Power Administration, Portland.
6,000 (reading file) copies a year eliminated. Fish & Wildlife
Service Regional Office, Boston.
LABOR
3,600 copies eliminated a year. Bureau of Employees Compensa-
tion, Baltimore.
SELECTIVE SERVICE SYSTEM
11,430 copies eliminated a year. State office, Baltimore.
U.S. COAST GUARD
5,000 extra copies eliminated annually. First District Headquarters,
Boston.
30,000 extra copies eliminated. Second District, St. Louis.
U.S. COURTS
80,000 copies eliminated a year. Federal- Probation Training
Center, U.S. Probation Office, Chicago.
VETERANS' ADMINISTRATION
40,000 copies eliminated annually. Regional office, St. Louis.
REVIEWS OR CLEARANCES ELIMINATED
AGRICULTURE
15,000 reviews and clearances eliminated annually. Farmers Home
Administration, St. Louis. .
Reviews cut from 4 to 2 on routine letters, :eliminating 16,000
reviews a year. Commodity Stabilization Service:; Chicago.
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ARMY
63
Reviews or clearances of correspondence reduced on an average
from 4 to 2 per 1et0r, saving /80,000 reviews a year. Engineer
district, Corps Engineers, New York.
Review of correspondence cut from 3 to 1 per letter, saving 130,000
reviews a year. Training Center, Fort Dix, N.J.
Reviews cut approximately 50 percent or 90,000 a year. Trans-
portation Supply and Maintenance Command, St. Louis.
Reviews or clearances reduced an average of 1 per letter or 60,000
per year. Engineer district, Corps Engineers, St. Louis.
All 5 reviews of transmittals of engineering drawings eliminated,
totaling 13,500 a year. Engineer district, Corps Engineers, Seattle.
DEFENSE
Reviews cut from 2 to' 0 on routine letters, eliminating 33,280
reviews a year. U.S. Armed Forces Institute, Madison, Wis.
U.S. COAST GUARD
Reviews cut from 4 to 2, eliminating 15,000 a year. Second Dis-
trict, St. Louis.
VETERANS' ADMINISTRATION
Reviews reduced 50 percent on 564,000 letters a year. Regional
office, Nashville.
IMPROVED ENDORSEMENT PROCEDURES
ARMY
At least 10 percent of endorsements stamped in lieu of typing, saving
300 man-hours. Engineer district, Corps Engineers, New York.
Use of rubber stamp endorsements result in 300 man-hours saved
per year. Transportation Supply and Maintenance Command,
St. Louis.
Ten percent of correspondence given stamped endorsement with
man-hours savings of 2,400 a year. Engineer district, Corps Engi-
neers, St. Louis.
U.S. COAST GUARD
Stamped endorsements replace 1,000 letters annually. First Dis-
trict Headquarters, Boston.
MORE USE OF CORRESPONDENCE EQUIPMENT
AGRICULTURE
Installation of Correspondex released two review clerks for other
duties, reduced need for typist 50 percent of time (about 5,000 man-
hours). Commodity Stabilization Service, Chicago.
Five hundred man-hours saved. Forest Service, Denver.
ret.
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ARMY
Better use of correspondence equipment saved 750 man-hours to
date. Transportation Supply and Maintenance Command, St. Louis.
, , . ,
GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION
Five hundred man-hours saved. Regional office, Denver.
HOUSING AND HOME FINANCE AGENCY
r
. Additional dictaphones and transcribers have resulted in savings of
600 man-hours. Regional office, Fort Worth.
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD '
Installation of dictaphones and transcribers has resulted in annual
savings of 832 man-hours. Regional office, Fort Worth.
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APPENDIX C. PAPERWORK SERVICES WHICH CAN BE USED
TO PROVIDE HEADS OF AGENCIES WITH CONTINUOUS
OVERSIGHT OF PERFORMANCE
The following paperwork services are defined, first to show the
services they render, and second the performance problems they
reveal.
It is assumed that an adequate paperwork systems group will also
be available to carry through on the leads revealed by the services.
The suggestions in this appendix should not be taken as a staffing
pattern. One analyst could have several assignments, depending
upon the workload.
Services and problems revealed are:
1. RECORDS SERVICE
Staff management to a total network of filing stations. Provides
continuous network assistance on recordkeeping. Provides effective
system of usable records.
Reveals?
(a) backlogs
(b) changes in subject emphasis
(c) rehandling
(d) overlap of activities
(e) faulty documentation
(f) trends in data needs and uses.
2. FORMS SERVICE
A personalized review and design service provides well-conceived
and well-designed forms at a considerable saving of effort on the part
of officials.
Reveals?
(a) needs for procedural improvements
(b) possibilities for obtaining common, compatable data
(c) possibilities for substantial production and stocking savings
(d) opportunities for automating at the source (source data
automation).
3. REPORTS SERVICE
Analysis to provide simple, timely, more informative, less expensive
reports.
Reveals?
(a) problem areas arising from possible breaks in procedure
(b) unnecessary paperwork (weekly compilations when really
needed only semiannually, etc.) ,
(c) narrative compositions which could be changed to simple
forms
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(d) key data failures
(e) information system failures
( f) inconsistency of managerial data
(g) overlapping
(h) costly practices.
,
, 4. . DIRECTIVES SERVICE
Clearinghouse and distribution point for official orders, instructions,
and notices.
Reveals?
? (a) changes in program and administrative activities
(b) needs for improvements
(c) system problems
(d) overlapping
(e) impending changes in workload
? ci) interagency problems
(g) procedural effectiveness to support programs and policies.
5. MAIL AND CORRESPONDENCE SERVICE
Staff management analysis to assure prompt delivery and dispatch
service, with especially prompt interoffite service. (Would not op-
erate the mailroom.) Maintains correspondence standards.
Reveals?
(a) trends in workload
(b) growth of backlogs
(c) scheduling problems relating to delivery of communications
(d) paper rehandling
(e) need, for improvements in signing delegation
(f) clearance problems
(g) public inquiry and complaint trends
(h) unresponsive letters
(i) need for form letters or mechanization of correspondence.
6. SOURCE DATA .AUTOMATION SERVICE
Engineers systems around the "working" desk to assure effective
? adjustment to and use of automation. .Obtains "machine language"
as close to the source as possible, usually as a byproduct of an early
activity. Supplants Manual paperwork activities with equiValent
machine products: Redesigns forms and systems to be responsive to
automation.
Reveals? -
(a) opportunities for improving "program-to-client" relationships
(b) methods for eliminating -costlY and time-consuming card-
punching or other input makeready steps
interoffice relationships capable of productive improvements
acceptable time frames
opportunities for reducing client effort by use of "turn-
around" documents' in or related to machine language
means of developing and improving data banks
needs for retraining Of personnel
possibilities for improving communications.
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7. MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SERVICE
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Provides an effective review forum to coordinate progress, and
assures a f'unity-of-purpose" among agency officials.
Re ve als?
(a) system deficiencies
(b) need for "administrative support
(c) reporting inadequacies.
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APPENDIX D. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS
SERVICE ORGANIZATION CHART
' OFA P5440.1 CHGE 13
December 28, 1964
NATIONAL HISTORICAL
PUBLICATIONS COMMISSION
ARCHIVIST OF THE
UNITED STATES
DEPUTY
ARCHIVIST
.OA TAi,in;2Aa?
DISTRIBUTION OF NARS
Personnel Resources
1 Ju/y, 1966
Total employment 1820
Office of Records 90
Management
Office of Federal 1215
Records Centers
Other :MRS 515
ADMINISTRATIVE
OFFICE
THE
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Office of Civil Archives
Archival Projects Division
Exhibits and Publications
Division
Reference Division
Office of Military Archives
Archival Projects Division
Reference Division
OFFICE OF
PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARIES
Libraries: .
Franklin U. Roosevelt
Harry S. Truman
Dwight S. Eisenhower
Ucrbert Hoover
OFFICE OF THE
FEDERAL REGISTER
Divisions:
Executive Agencies
Presidential and
Legislative
OFFICE OF FEDERAL
RECORDS CENTERS
Divisions:
Operations
Records Appraisal
OFFICE OF RECORDS
:MANAGEMENT
Divisions:
Paperwork Standards
and Automatien
Program Evaluation
Technical Assistance
gNe -1, National Archives and Re. ds Servioe
Organization Chart
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APPENDIX E
THE WHITE HOUSE,
Washington, D.C., September 22, 1966.
Memorandum for heads of departments and agencies.
Federal agencies spend approximately $60 million annually for new
office furniture, file cabinets, and typewriters.
There are about 13 million cubic feet of records in office space
occupied by the various executive branch agencies.
There are close to 34 billion pieces of paper in 2 million file cabinets.
Last year I directed the General Services Administration, in coop-
eration with other Federal agencies, to reduce the need for the purchase
of new items of office equipment by:
Redistribution of existing equipment,
Repair and rehabilitation of existing equipment, and
Disposal of unneeded records and papers.
I declared a moratorium on the purchase of new file cabinets.
Agencies were instructed to meet their current needs for file cabinets
by:
Destruction of old records, and
Transferring records to Federal records centers.
This program is working. Over $3 6 million was saved during the
first year of the moratorium on file cabinet purchases alone. These
savings are continuing, with purchases still running less than 40
percent of the purchases before the moratorium.
In carrying out the objectives of the moratorium, several depart-
ments conducted nationwide cleanout campaigns to dispose of un-
needed records, publications, reference materials, furniture, equipment,
and supplies. On average, these campaigns reduced the paper held
in offices and work areas by 20 percent. Through such campaigns
five agencies:
Released 20,000 file cabinets for other uses,
Destroyed 160,000 cubic feet of records, and
Transferred to storage 60,000 cubic feet of records.
I want every department and agency head to take similar action.
He should assure that every official, every supervisor, and every
employee in his organization disposes of unneeded records, publica-
tions, reference material, furniture, equipment, and supplies.
If records are not needed for current use, or should not be destroyed,
they should be sent to Federal records centers. Here they can be
stored for less than 10 percent of the cost of storage in office space.
Unneeded furniture, equipment, and supplies should be turned in
for distribution where needed.
These actions can help reduce lower priority Federal expenditures in
accordance with the immediate action program I set forth in my
economic message of September 8, 1966.
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Schedules for individual departments and agency programs should
? be worked out with the General Services Administration in order to
insure:
Thorough preparation for agency programs,
Orderly disposition of unneeded records and materials, and
Minimum interference with public business.
The program should be spread as evenly as possible over a 1-year
period, beginning September1966. ?
Departments and agencies which have completed similar programs
since January 1,- 1965, need not schedule new ones before September
1967.
I would like each department and agency head, within 30 days Of
the close of this program, to report to me, through the Budget Director,
on the results achieved:
? LYNDON B. JOHNSON.
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