02-29766. Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comment Request

AGENCY:

Office for Equal Opportunity, Office of the Secretary, DOI.

ACTION:

Notice.

SUMMARY:

In compliance with section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Office for Equal Opportunity announces the proposed extension of a public information collection and seeks public comments on the provisions thereof.

DATES:

Consideration will be given to all comments received by January 21, 2003.

ADDRESSES:

Written comments and recommendations on the proposed information collection should be sent to the Office for Equal Opportunity, Attn: Samuel Bowser, Department of the Interior, 1849 C St, NW., Washington, DC 20240.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

To request more information on this proposed information collection or to obtain a copy of the proposal and associated collection instrument, please write to the above address, or call Samuel Bowser, [phone]. The collection instrument is also available on the Internet at: http://www.doi.gov/​diversity/​doc/​di_​1935.pdf.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

DOI is below parity with the Relevant Civilian Labor Force representation for many mission critical occupations. The Department's Strategic Human Capital Management Plan identifies the job skills that will be needed in our current and future workforce. The job skills we will need are dispersed throughout our eight bureaus and include, among others, making visitors welcome to various facilities, such as parks and refuges, processing permits for a wide variety of uses of the public lands, collecting royalties for minerals extracted from the public lands, rounding-up and adopting-put wild horses and burros found in the west, protecting archaeological and cultural resources of the public lands, and enforcing criminal laws of the United States. As a result of this broad spectrum of duties and services, the Department touches the lives of most Americans.

The people who deal with the Department bring with them a wide variety of backgrounds, cultures, and experiences. A diverse workforce enables the Department to provide a measure of understanding to its customers by relating to the diverse background of those customers. By including employees of all backgrounds, all DOI employees gain a measure of knowledge, background, experience, and comfort in serving all the Department's customers.

In order to determine if there are barriers in our recruitment and selection processes, we must rack the demographic groups that apply for our jobs. There is no other statistically valid method to make these determinations, and no source of this information other than directly from applicants. The data collected is not provided to selecting officials and plays no part in the merit staffing or the selection processes. The data collected will be used in summary form to determine trends covering the demographic make-up of applicant pools and job selections within a given occupation or organizational group. The records of those applicants not selected are destroyed in accordance with the Department's records management process.

Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the agency, including whether the information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the proposed information collection; (c) ways to enhance the quality, utility and clarity of the information to be collected; and (d) ways to minimize the burden of the information collection on respondents, including through the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology.

Title, Associated Form, and OMB Number: Applicant Background Survey, DI form 1935; OMB Control No.: 1091-0001.

Needs and Uses: This form is used to obtain the source of recruitment, ethnicity, race, and disability data on job applicants to determine if the recruitment is effectively reaching all aspects of the relevant labor pool and to determine if there are proportionate acceptance rates at various stages of the recruitment process. Response is optional. The information is used for evaluating recruitment only, and plays no part in the selection of who is hired.

Affected Public: Applicants for DOI jobs.

Annual Burden Hours: 9,960.

Number of Respondents: 120,000.

Responses Per Respondent: 1.

Average Burden Per Response: No more than 5 minutes.

Frequency: 1 per application.

Dated: November 5, 2002.

Samuel Bowser,

Assistant Director for Workforce Diversity, Department of the Interior.