Data Quality Arrives - September 30, 2002 Vol. 3 No. 20

September 30, 2002 Vol. 3 No. 20:

Published: 09/30/2002

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Data Quality Arrives

Tomorrow, October 1, is the deadline set by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for agencies to finalize and begin to implement data quality guidelines, which seek to establish criteria for information disseminated by government agencies. Concerns have been raised that these guidelines may be misused by the regulated community to slow down the regulatory process, de-publish information critical of industry and its impacts, and possibly overturn long established regulations.

Since May, when most agencies drafted their guidelines, there has been little indication of what the final guidelines will contain. Each agency had a public comment period during which interested parties provided feedback to the agencies on their draft guidelines. After the agencies considered the comments and incorporated changes they deemed necessary, the guidelines were submitted to OMB for review and approval. These submissions to OMB are not available to the public.

OMB has only publicly released two memos regarding its review of the draft guidelines, raising only relatively minor issues. Specifically, OMB asked agencies to incorporate the following principles into their final guidelines:

Agency web sites should keep the public informed about data quality;
A separate data quality process is unnecessary and duplicative during rulemakings and other procedures that allow for complaints; and
Agencies should commit to provide a written response within 60 calendar days of receiving a data quality request.