I.D: Leadership, Governance, and Measurement

Establish an open government governance structure

Other Information:

Open government is about transformation and cultural change, which takes leadership above all else. EPA's leadership commitment to open government is unquestioned, as evidenced by Administrator Jackson's actions in April 2009 – when she issued a Transparency Memorandum to all Employees - and by integrating open government's most fundamental concept in our core values, which are science, transparency, and the rule of law. In response to the OGD, EPA swiftly took action to establish a governance structure to: * Guide and conduct immediate activities. * Capitalize on and enhance existing Agency policies and management controls. * Look for ways to institutionalize open government within EPA’s organizational structure. We are also focused on evaluating the Agency’s progress in meeting OGD mandates, as well as establishing measures of our progress and performance for EPA-specific initiatives and projects. We will evaluate how to best incorporate open government tenets into Agency processes, including Capital Planning and Investment Control, Budget Formulation, and Strategic Planning and our Enterprise Architecture. For example, we will work to tie our Strategic Data Action Plan to these processes. We will review our Open Government Plan every 180 days and assess our progress. 1. Accountable Officials Administrator Jackson charged Linda Travers, Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator of the Office of Environmental Information (OEI), with leading the Open Government Executive Steering Committee. Ms. Travers also serves as the Agency’s Deputy Chief Information Officer, and her office manages the lifecycle of information that supports mission objectives. OEI’s responsibilities cut across the Agency, and OEI also supports many of the functions necessary to execute, monitor and report progress in meeting open government principles. More information on OEI, what it does, and how the office is organized is located at (www.epa.gov/oei/). Administrator Jackson charged Barbara Bennett, the Agency’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), as the Senior Accountable Official responsible for assuring the quality and objectivity of, and internal controls over, publicly disseminated federal spending information. Ms. Bennett directs the work of the Open Government Spending Information Quality Work Group. OCFO's responsibilities are integral to ensure accountability and integrity - key tenets to EPA's approach to open government. For more information on OCFO, visit (www.epa.gov/ocfo). 2. Open Government Governance Structure EPA established a governance structure with work groups and teams representing offices across the Agency to get the right experts in the room to figure out how to instill open government throughout the Agency. A diagram of our governance structure is shown in Figure I-1, and the work groups and teams are further described in the remainder of this section. 3. How We Will Measure the Success of Open Government at EPA EPA is evaluating our progress with open government in two ways: government-wide measures and EPA-specific measures. For government-wide measures, the OGD established deadlines for action for each federal agency. Information about how EPA is progressing to meet those deadlines is available at the following link: (www.epa.gov/open/evaluate.html). For EPA-specific measures, we are setting milestones and performance measures for both the overall open government initiative and for targeted projects. The public will be able to track the progress of our projects from EPA’s Open Government Web site (www.epa.gov/open). We are currently evaluating methods for individual project leads to update and maintain their information and will begin posting updates once we have determined the best update method for project use. We anticipate a progression over time in how we measure the success of open government at EPA. Initially, that measurement will be qualitative – i.e., how well we execute on this plan. We will report progress with respect to execution of the plan to the public on our Open Government Web site (www.epa.gov/open) on a quarterly basis, in the ―Evaluating Our Progress‖ area. One of our key actions is to develop the right quantitative metrics for the success of open government at EPA. Our initial metrics, which will be refined through our governance process, are relatively basic: Transparency: * Number of high value data and geospatial sets and tools published * Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) backlog, time to respond, and total requests processed Participation and Collaboration: * Number of opportunities for the public to provide input into EPA’s work * Number of EPA electronic town hall meetings Flagship Initiative(s) * Detailed milestone plan developed * Actions met in accordance with Plan These metrics will need to be refined and others added via the governance process as our work progresses. We will also look to the public to help us define relevant measures. We will be developing standard metrics for measuring the success of efforts to engage the public. These metrics will go beyond volume of participation (e.g., number of comments received) to the impact of participation (e.g., number of ideas from the public that are adopted and what impact they have on results delivered by EPA). This points to the ultimate measure of success of open government at EPA: We want to ensure that our stakeholders are informed about information we have on environmental protection, and we want to ensure that their voice is heard as we move forward in implementing our mission "to protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment - air, water, and land-upon which life depends." In our quarterly reports on our open government execution, we will describe the qualitative and quantitative impact that open government is having on EPA performance, as part of an ongoing evaluation of our open government programs and policies.

Stakeholder(s):

• Barbara Bennett: Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Senior Accountable Official responsible for assuring the quality and objectivity of, and internal controls over, publicly disseminated federal spending information


• Linda Travers: Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator of the Office of Environmental Information (OEI), charged with leading the Open Government Executive Steering Committee. Ms. Travers also serves as the Agency’s Deputy Chief Information Officer, and her office manages the lifecycle of information that supports mission objectives.


• Open Government Executive Steering Committee: The Open Government Executive Steering Committee is made up of Senior Executive Service employees from key responsible offices within the Agency. This group is charged with setting policy and direction while meeting legal requirements. The group also works to secure resources in support of the Agency’s plan and associated projects. The following offices are represented on the committee: * Office of the Administrator (OA) * Office of Public Affairs (OPA) * Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation (OPEI) * Office of Administration and Resources Management (OARM) * Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) * Office of General Counsel (OGC) * Office of Environmental Information (OEI) * Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) * Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) * Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances (OPPTS) * Office of Research and Development (ORD) * Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER) * Office of Water (OW) * Regional Offices The Open Government Executive Steering Committee regularly reports to the Deputy Administrator, the Deputy Assistant Administrators and the Regional Administrators of most offices within the Agency. The work groups and teams described below support the Open Government Executive Steering Committee in meeting its charge.


• Open Government Management Work Group: This work group consists of senior managers and staff from across the Agency, including regional representation. This group meets on a weekly basis to develop actions, provide input and track progress. Open Government Project Teams - Three project teams currently operate as a subset of the management work group. Each team has a specific task that supports open government.


• Web site Team: Charged with maintaining EPA's Open Government Web site.


• High Value Datasets Team: Charged with identifying and prioritizing high-value datasets for future addition to Data.gov, incorporating public feedback.


• Open Government Plan Team: Charged with coordinating Open Government Plan development, managing public input to the plan, monitoring plan progress, and coordinating updates to the plan.


• Open Government Spending Information Quality Work Group: The Open Government Spending Information Quality Work Group is charged with developing a plan to assure the quality and integrity of our high-value Federal spending information. This work group will also work towards integrating the quality plan into a long-term Agency strategy that ensures the integrity of all federal spending information.

Indicator(s):

Indicator:1

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