§3505 Assignment of tasks and deadlines

Summary

The Director must set governmentwide goals to cut the paperwork and information collection burden on the public. The goals are at least 10% reductions in each of fiscal years 1996 and 1997, and 5% reductions in each of fiscal years 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001. The Director also must set yearly agency goals to reduce burdens as much as each agency reasonably can, make the agency review process for collections better (under section 3506(c)), and improve how information is used to make programs more productive, efficient, and effective, including better service to the public. The Director may run voluntary pilot projects with selected agencies and non‑Federal groups to try new policies and practices to cut burden. For those pilots, after talking with the agency head and giving timely notice to the public and Congress, the Director may waive an agency rule or directive, including ones that require collecting information. Working with the Administrator of General Services, the NIST Director, the Archivist, and the OPM Director, the Director must create and keep a governmentwide plan that says how information resources will be used to improve performance, how to cut duplication and meet shared data needs, how to improve public access (including electronic access), how to meet federal IT needs, and report progress. Each agency head must make and keep an up‑to‑date inventory of major information systems, including national security systems. The inventory must show links between each system and other systems or networks, even those outside the agency. It must be updated at least once a year and given to the Comptroller General. Agencies must use the inventory to support information resources management tasks, such as the inventory called for in section 3506(b)(4); IT planning, budgeting, and buying under section 3506(h) and subtitle III of title 40; security testing and monitoring under subchapter II; the index of major systems under section 552(g) of title 5; and records‑management inventories under chapters 21, 29, 31, and 33. The Director will issue guidance and oversee how agencies follow these rules.