Roles and Responsibilities Under the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act

Responsibilities for Evaluation Officers

The Evaluation Officer shall have authority and responsibility for providing leadership over the agency's (or sub-agency's, operational division's, or bureau's) evaluation activities, and will be expected to perform the following functions:

Serve as:

• Agency champion for and educator of agency staff and leaders about evaluation, including what evaluation is, the value of conducting evaluations, how to discern high-quality evaluation from other types of analyses, and the importance of evaluation as a strategic investment;
• Senior advisor to agency leaders on issues of evaluation policy and practice, such as designing and undertaking evaluations, interpreting results, and integrating evaluation findings into day-to-day agency operations, management processes, budgeting, strategic planning, and other decision-making;
• Senior agency contact on evaluation for agency-wide and cross-cutting evaluation efforts, both with external stakeholders and in coordination with senior officials responsible for other agency functions, including officials responsible for implementing privacy policy, the Chief Data Officer, the Chief Information Officer, the Statistical Official, the Performance Improvement Officer, additional evaluation and analysis units and personnel in the agency, and others as appropriate;
• Participant in the agency's Chief Operating Officer-led efforts to review progress on Agency Priority Goals and other management priorities to ensure that evidence is included and used appropriately;
• Member of the agency Data Governance Body; and
• Member of the interagency Evaluation Officer Council.

Oversee or conduct:

• Assessment of the coverage, quality, methods, effectiveness, objectivity, scientific integrity, and balance of the portfolio of evaluations, policy research, and ongoing evaluation activities of the agency, in consultation with other methodologists, such as the Statistical Official, when appropriate;
• Improvement of agency capacity to support the development and use of evaluation, coordinate and increase technical expertise available for evaluation and related research activities within the agency, and improve the quality of evaluations and knowledge of evaluation methodology and standards;
• Implementation of the forthcoming OMB guidance for program evaluation standards and best practices;
• Establishment and implementation of an agency evaluation policy that affirms the agency's commitment to conducting rigorous, relevant evaluations and to using evidence from evaluations to inform policy and practice. The policy will provide the agency's stakeholders with a clear understanding of the expectations related to key principles, such as evaluation rigor, relevance, transparency, independence, and ethics;
• Coordination, development, and implementation of the plans required under section 312 of the Evidence Act:

• Learning Agenda (evidence-building plan) in conjunction with the Agency Strategic Plan;
• Annual Evaluation Plan, submitted in conjunction with the Annual Performance Plan; and
• Capacity Assessment, included as part of the Agency Strategic Plan.

• Development of new or improvement of existing processes to integrate evaluation findings into agency decision-making and other functions;
• Management of agency-wide evaluation standards and requirements to ensure the scientific integrity of the agency's evaluation activities; and
• Use and dissemination of evaluation results throughout the agency and to the public, as appropriate.

Responsibilities of Statistical Officials

The Statistical Official will direct and coordinate statistical policy for the agency and will be expected to perform the following functions:

Serve as the:

• Agency champion for data quality to ensure data relevance(e.g., by validating that data are appropriate, accurate, objective, accessible, useful, understandable, and timely), harness existing data (e.g., by identifying data needs and reusing data if possible), anticipate future uses (e.g., by building interoperability of data from its inception), and demonstrate responsiveness (e.g., by improving data collection, analysis, and dissemination with ongoing input from users and stakeholders);
• Agency champion for confidentiality protection and appropriate data access for agency data collected with legal or other restrictions on use or release;
• Agency senior advisor for statistical policy, including establishing policies to enable agencies to produce and disseminate relevant and timely statistical information, conduct credible and accurate statistical activities, conduct objective statistical activities, and protect the trust of information providers by ensuring the confidentiality and exclusive statistical use of their responses;
• Agency senior advisor for statistical techniques to ensure the use of techniques that provide optimal levels of data quality and confidentiality; and
• Agency senior advisor for statistical procedures that implement desired policies and techniques systematically and efficiently.

Oversee:

• Development of agency data quality standards to ensure that quality standards described in the Information Quality Act and Paperwork Reduction Act are met for statistical products produced by any part of the agency, including the provision of metadata to meet stakeholder needs and the permission to use privacy-enhancing technologies whose use requires significant amounts of documentation; and
• Development of agency confidentiality standards to appropriately safeguard sensitive information contained in the agency's data assets.

Responsibilities for Chief Data Officers

Governance Responsibilities

One of the CDO's most important responsibilities is to convene and coordinate agency-wide data governance, which is a shared activity among multiple data stewards and supporting officials. In this regard, the Evidence Act assigns specific functions to the CDO, but it is OMB's expectation that other agency leaders continue to perform the functions assigned to them by relevant statutes.

The head of the agency retains ultimate responsibility for the success of the agency's data management activities. To further the necessary collaborative environment, the CDO's convening and coordination functions shall include:

• Leading the agency's Data Governance Body, including facilitating collaborative activities among the numerous actors with responsibilities and needs for data within the agency;
• Supporting the agency's learning agenda by coordinating data access and management activities that support evidence building, including evaluation, performance reporting, and the analysis of regulations;
• Coordinating with any official in the agency responsible for using, protecting, disseminating, and generating data to ensure that the data needs of the agency are met;
• Engaging agency employees, the public, and contractors in using public data assets, and encouraging collaborative approaches on improving data use;
• Supporting the Performance Improvement Officer of the agency in identifying and using data to carry out the functions described in 31 U.S.C. § 1124(a)(2);
• Supporting the Evaluation Officer of the agency in obtaining data to carry out the functions described in 5 U.S.C. § 313(d);
• Reviewing the impact of the infrastructure of the agency on data asset accessibility and coordinating with the Chief Information Officer of the agency to improve such infrastructure to reduce barriers that inhibit data asset accessibility;
• Ensuring that, to the extent practicable, the agency maximizes its use of data, including for the production of evidence, including regulatory analyses, cybersecurity, and the improvement of agency operations;
• Identifying points of contact for roles and responsibilities related to open data use and implementation;
• Serving as the agency liaison to other agencies and OMB on the best way to use existing agency data for statistical purposes. This function includes helping program units provide data to statistical agencies and units, as required in section 303 of the Evidence Act; and
• Complying with any regulation and guidance issued under the newly added subchapter III of chapter 35 of title 44 of the United States Code, including the acquisition and maintenance of any required certification and training.

Lifecycle Data Management Responsibilities

The second major area of responsibility for a Chief Data Officer is the agency's lifecycle data management, including:

• Ensuring that the agency follows, to the extent practicable, data management best practices;
• Carrying out information resources management strategic planning, including leading the development of the agency's Open Data Plan;
• Carrying out the requirements of the agency with regard to the information collection and control of paperwork, including certifying to OMB the agency's compliance with 5 CFR 1320.9 and 1320.8(b)(3);
• Carrying out information dissemination;
• Managing the agency's data assets, including the standardization of data format, sharing of data assets, and publication of data assets in accordance with applicable law; and
• Carrying out records management.