A guide to the Paperwork Reduction Act

Plan ahead for PRA

Most agencies estimate six to nine months for PRA clearance from agency development to OIRA's decision. By law, this process in most cases includes at least three months of public comment.

However, you do not need to extend your project timeline for PRA! You can start the 60-day comment period in the Federal Register and consider public comments while simultaneously developing the more detailed request for OMB review.

PRA approval does take time, but it does not have to all be done at the very end. Please note that if you are dealing with a collection of information stemming from a proposed rule, the process is slightly different.

Process overview for standard clearance

1. Step 1

   Agency develops the information request. Your agency may have an internal approval process at this stage.

   Who is involved? Agency

2. Step 2

   Agency publishes 60-day notice to the Federal Register for comment.

   Who is involved? Agency, Public

3. Step 3

   Agency considers the public comment on the notice, and makes changes, if applicable.

   Who is involved? Agency

4. Step 4

   Agency publishes 30-day notice to the Federal Register for public comment and concurrently submits final package to OMB for review.

   Who is involved? Agency, Public, OMB

5. Step 5

   OMB reviews and engages the agency on any questions/comment, then issues a decision.

   Who is involved? OMB

Develop the information collection request within your agency

If your collection needs PRA clearance, it is time to put together the basics of the information collection request (ICR). This first request will not be reviewed by OMB, but it will require a Federal Register Notice for the public to review and comment on.

The Notice should include details about:

• What information is being collected
• Who you are collecting it from
• Why you are collecting it
• What is the estimated burden cost, i.e., the time (in hours), financial considerations, and paperwork needed for the collection
• How will the information be used once you have collected it

This information helps the public understand your collection during the comment period. It will be important in writing a strong supporting statement when requesting approval from OMB.

Issue a 60-day request for comment in the Federal Register

Since you will be collecting information from the public, the PRA makes sure they have time to ask questions and offer comments or ideas. Your notice needs to have enough detail for the public to consider these questions:

• Do they feel collecting this information is necessary?
• Does the burden estimate seem accurate and justified, and could it be lower?
• How will you make sure the information collected is high quality, clear, and useful?

Consider the public comments on the notice

Reviewing comments from the public is an excellent way to understand how the people actually responding to your information collection feel about it. Review and consideration of public comments is essential and allows you to adjust and improve the request before submitting the collection to OMB for review. Part of the review involves a summary of public comments, and if you made any changes based on them.

Issue a 30-day notice to the Federal Register

The 30-day Federal Register notice lets the public know you have submitted the collection to OMB and that OMB is reviewing it. It includes all the information from the 60 day notice and any changes you have made from public comments. If the public has further comments, they are sent to OMB directly instead of the agency.

Submit request to OMB for review

With your agency, you will submit an Information Clearance Request (ICR) package to OMB for review. ICR’s are submitted to OMB through a system called ROCIS. The ICR package submitted into ROCIS contains:

• Supporting Statement and other supporting documentation.
• The instruments of the collection (copies of the forms, surveys, recordkeeping requirements, etc.).
• A summary of any public comments, and the agency's response(s).
• Details about the 60-day and 30-day Federal Register notices, including date, page, expected or actual publishing date, and the full text of the 30-day notice.
• A copy of the relevant statute and regulation mandating or authorizing the collection of information.
• Guides or instructions for interviewers.
• Explanatory material to be given to prospective respondents, and follow-up material to be given to members of the public who do not respond.

OMB review timeline and process

OMB typically reviews ICR packages within sixty days, from the date of submission or publication of the 30-day Federal Register notice (whichever is later), but can take longer in some circumstances.

During this time, your ICR package should be reviewed by an OIRA desk officer. The desk officer will look at how the collection’s supporting statement and documentation meet the standards of the PRA.

PRA approval process associated with rules

For information collections associated with proposed rules there is a slightly different process that an agency must go through to get OMB approval.

Process overview for information collections associated with proposed rules

Process overview for standard clearance

1. Step 1

   Agency develops the information request concurrently with the proposed rule. Your agency may have an internal approval process at this stage.

   Who is involved? Agency

2. Step 2

   Agency publishes proposed rule in the Federal Register soliciting public comment on associated ICRs and submits a PRA request to OMB.

   Who is involved? Agency, Public, OMB

3. Step 3

   OMB reviews proposed collection, and any comments received.

   Who is involved? OMB

4. Step 4

   Agency considers the public comments on the proposed rule and the information collection.

   Who is involved? Agency

5. Step 5

   Agency publishes Final Rule and submits final request to OMB.

   Who is involved? Agency, OMB

Develop the information collection request within your agency

Agency develops the information request. Your agency may have an internal approval process at this stage.

Publish Proposed Rule in the Federal Register and submit request to OMB

When the notice of proposed rulemaking goes out for comment, an agency must state the following in the rule preamble: 1) that the proposed rule contains an information collection; 2) describe and identify the collection; and 3) indicate that it has been submitted to OMB for review. This step and the solicitation for comments on the collection in the proposed rule replace the 60-day and 30-day Federal Register notices required in the more typical information collection process. The agency must also concurrently submit the proposed collection to OMB for review.

OMB reviews proposed collection

During OMB review, OMB will review the information collection and any comments received. At this stage, OMB may have comments on the collection and defer final review until the agency finalizes the associated rule. Alternately, OMB may indicate the collection is fine as is (preapproved). Either action will conclude review of the proposed collection submitted to OMB. It is important to note that neither of these actions grant final approval to collect the information, which will occur later in Step 5.

Agency considers the public comments on the proposed rule

The agency will consider public comments received on both the rule and the information collection and make changes if applicable.

Agency publishes Final Rule and submits final request to OMB

If OMB filed comments on the collection and deferred review at step 3 then the agency must resubmit the collection to OMB for review when the agency finalizes the associated rule. The agency does not need to publish another Federal Register notice at this stage. The collection will then be reviewed by OMB and approved if the collection meets the standards of the PRA.

If OMB “preapproved” the collection at step 3 and it remains unchanged from when it was preapproved then the agency can take action in ROCIS to finalize the approval and receive an OMB control number. But if there were substantive changes to the collection then the agency must resubmit the collection to OMB for review and approval. If there is uncertainty about whether the changes are substantive the agency should consult its OIRA desk officer.

Supporting Statements

The Supporting Statement is a set of required questions that help provide a clear rationale for the why, what, how, and who of the information collection. All Supporting Statements have a Part A — a standard list of 18 questions (PDF, 139 KB, 4 pages) — which shows compliance with the PRA requirements and other associated laws. Collections that require statistical methods, like surveys or program evaluations, have additional requirements, called Part B.

What makes a good Supporting Statement?

A clear supporting statement will help OMB and the public better understand your collection and reduce the need for questions aimed at simply trying to understand the overall collection. Be sure to give information about the authority your agency has to collect the type of information in your proposal.

A few of the criteria covered in the Supporting Statement include:

• Agency purpose
• Need
• Practical utility
• Avoidance of unnecessary duplication

Agency purpose

This describes the general purpose of the collection to the sponsoring agency's goals, and how the collection will achieve a stated results. A collection may have more than one purpose; each should be described in the Supporting Statement.

Need

The agency must have a need for the information or data to be collected, based on program or policy requirements. As the Federal government, we need to help ensure we are careful when we impose burden on the public and it should be for very specific reasons.

While "purpose" is how the collection fits with the agency goals, "need" involves how the results will help program operation or policy development.

Practical utility

Does the information being collected meet the stated goals? Ask yourself, is the information accurate, adequate, and reliable enough for the agency to use for this purpose? Proposals should consider how an agency can use the information in ways that are reasonable, practical, workable, timely, and reliable.

The practical utility of a collection needs to serve both the purpose and need. Requests must only collect information that is needed for the stated purpose(s).

A collection does not have practical utility if it cannot serve both the given purpose and need. Some reasons include:

• Unable to process and analyze information, or provide resources to do so, within a timely manner.
• Design or method will not achieve appropriate results.
• Collection will give unclear or non-generalizable results due to ambiguous survey questions, unduly-biased methodology, or ineffective disclosure methods.

Collections should maximize practical utility. Some examples of this include:

• Redrawing a sample in a survey to reduce a high sample variance to produce more precise and useful data.
• Revising the selection of a control group to make analytical comparisons more meaningful.
• Clarifying questions to improve reliability of responses.

Avoidance of unnecessary duplication

Before collecting more information, see if there is already accessible information that could serve the same purpose or need. This can include information collected for another purpose, such as administrative records, other federal agencies and programs, or other public and private sources.

If existing information sources do not have the level of detail needed to meet the purpose and need, cannot be meaningfully analyzed together with other collected responses, or are not legally available for your purpose and need, then the information gathered is necessary and not duplicative.