IMPROVING FEDERAL REPORTING AND REDUCING RELATED PAPERWORK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00399R000100180024-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 7, 2006
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: December 1, 1970
• Content Type: MF

Approved For Release 2006/12/07: CIA-RDP75-00399R0180024-2
DINMENTIAL
0
W
SUBJECT . Improving Federal Reporting and Reducing
Related Paperwork
REFERENCE OMB Transmittal Memorandum Number 1 to
Circular A-44 revised 17 June 1970
1. We are proceeding with the review and analysis of
reporting systems in the Support Directorate as outlined in your
memorandum of 12 November. The success of our effort, as you have
recognized, will be completely dependent upon the degree of
cooperation we receive from the other Directorates and OPPB. We
will keep you informed of our progress and seek your help with
problems if we need it as we go along. I am still concerned,
however, about the total scope of the program, its long term Im-
plications, and how the Agency plans to deal with it. Problems
and studies of this sort are more effectively dealt with at the
Agency level rather than subordinate echelons.
2. Transmittal memorandum Number 1 says that "the objec-
tives of this study are to improve reporting, reduce related paper-
work, and eliminate unjustified reporting requirements and associated
reporting systems." The scope of the study includes a review of
reporting requirements; a review of the organization, functions,
and resources used for reporting systems and reports management, and
the recommendation of improvements; and the conduct of research and
development studies to formulate future plans for reporting systems.
Each report is to be justified to the satisfaction of the Project
Director, and the justification must be certified valid by someone
at the Assistant Secretary level or its equivalent. Justification
and certification responsibility may not be delegated.
3. If we are going to have a program in the Agency to cover
the full scope of the government program and satisfy the objectives
of the transmittal memorandum, It must, in my opinion, be sponsored
OiOUY I
Excluded from aalomatlc
dorwnrading and
dccla.siiicu$an
CD
Approved For Release 2006/12/07: CIA-RDP75-00399R000100180024-2
MEMORAn M FOR: Chairman, Reports Inventory Task Force
 Approved For Release 2006/12/07: CIA-RDP75-00399R000100180024-2
at the Agency level. Execution and administration of the program
perhaps can be accomplished at the Dieectorate level, but only if
there are Agency guidelines which can be applied and adjudicated
equitably and with the same interest and purpose throughout the
Agency. The fact that reports management is a continuing require-
ment tied directly to the broader management improvement program to
be implemented under OMB Circular A-44 Revised suggests that our
treatment of the Reports Management Program should be considered in
those broader terms.
4. The circular requires that "each department and agency
head...establish a formal, organized management effectiveness pro-
gram..." with the objective of concentrating "management attention
on persistent problem areas." These areas are to be identified by
a "systematic review" of Agency activities and operations. Within
the Agency the Deputy Directors are required to establish their own
management improvement program and "identify those activities which
they feel need inter.-Directorate or Agency-wide attention." Having
them identified is one thing. Doing something about them is an
entirely different matter. The Agency has no mechanism or structure
to permit inter-Directorate or Agency-wide problems to be dealt with
systematically. We deal with them by creating, another Board, Committee,
or Task Force and, in order to spread the work load, the membership is
rarely the same. So it is with the present exercise; Circular A-44
is being handled through the PPB mechanism; the "Information pxplossion"
is being dealt with by the Inspector General and TM -1 is being dealt
with ad hoc by an entirely different group. Unless we take some steps
now to introduce more orderliness into the marshalling of resources to
deal with these problems we will be in no better position to deal with
transmittal merorandumss 2, 3, 4 and following, than we are to deal with
TM i or inter-Directorate or Agency wide problems identified internally.
The prospect of being plagued repetitively and continuously by require-
ments of this kind suggests that it might be profitable to consider
whether we want to continue to treat them ad hoc or seek some more
systematic approach. It might also suggest that we should address the
question of whether or not the Agency gives enough attention to the
management of the pervasives, ligatures and coagulants of the organ-
ization of which reports management is only one. Others are suggested
for future study in paragraph 7 of A-44. We can begin this considera-
tion an a part of preparing ourselves to respond to TM-i.
GO IN I NT P1
Exclubd 6ri asrumat!
Approved For Release 2006/12/07: CIA-RDP75-003998000100180024-2
 Approved For Release 2006/12/07: CIA-RDP75-00399R000100180024-2
C F - -
5. Guidance from the Agency level is required regarding the
degree to which compliance with the scope and intent-of TM--I is
intended. We are currently engaged in a review at the Directorate
level of the reporting requirements, but we need to know what the
Agency intends with regard to:
a. reviewing the organization, functions, and
resources used for reporting systems and
reports management;
b. the conduct of research and development
studies to formulate future plans for
reporting systems;
c. the establishment of criteria for justifjring
existing reports which are to be continued
and new reporting requirements which will
evolve;
d. the establishment of the level of authority
at which the validity of the justification
will be certified.
e. the establishment and maintenance of a
continuing reports management program at the
Agency and subordinate levels.
6. Reports Management is directly related to information pro-
cessing. More than half the reports and more than half the costs of
reporting systems identified in the inventory recently completed are
the products of computer driven systems. People involved in the
information processing world are accustomed to dealing with require-
ments and requests for information to be produced as regular or
periodic reports ; to analyzing and designing systems to produce
them; and to assessing their general merit and the justification for
them. More than half the reports and reporting systems are directly
related to the day to day operations of the information processors.
It would appear that they would be in the best position to assume
responsibility for taking the actions necessary to satisfy the require-
ments of TM-1 with the least impact on their current duties. If the
Agency is to take the reports management problem seriously it would
seem to make sense to do it within the existing mechanisms.
Approved For Release 2006/12/07: CIA-RDP75-00399R000100180024-2
 Approved For Release 2006/12/07: CIA-RDP75-00399R000100180024-2
lTA1
7. 1 offer these thoughts for your consideration. In any
tee, further guidance is needed about what the Agency intends to do
with regard to the scope and objectives of 114-1.
thief, Support Services Staff
DDS/SSS/RHW:rf (1 December 1970)
Distribution:
Orig. & 1-Addressee
1-SSS Subject
1-SSS Chrono
Ex~cuded f; or Bare C{gtlC
Approved For Release 2006/12/07: CIA-RDP75-003998000100180024-2