2019-24076. Agency Information Collection Activities: Information Collection Renewal; Comment Request; Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery

AGENCY:

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Treasury.

ACTION:

Notice and request for comments.

SUMMARY:

The OCC, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on a continuing information collection as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA).

In accordance with the requirements of the PRA, the OCC may not conduct or sponsor, and the respondent is not required to respond to, an information collection unless it displays a currently valid Office of Management and Budget (OMB) control number.

The OCC is soliciting comment concerning the renewal of its information collection titled, “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery.”

DATES:

Comments must be submitted on or before January 6, 2020.

ADDRESSES:

Commenters are encouraged to submit comments by email, if possible. You may submit comments by any of the following methods:

• Email: [e-mail].
• Mail: Chief Counsel's Office, Attention: Comment Processing, 1557-0248, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 400 7th Street SW, Suite 3E-218, Washington, DC 20219.
• Hand Delivery/Courier: 400 7th Street SW, Suite 3E-218, Washington, DC 20219.
• Fax: [phone].

Instructions: You must include “OCC” as the agency name and “1557-0248” in your comment. In general, the OCC will publish comments on www.reginfo.gov without change, including any business or personal information provided, such as name and address information, email addresses, or phone numbers. Comments received, including attachments and other supporting materials, are part of the public record and subject to public disclosure. Do not include any information in your comment or supporting materials that you consider confidential or inappropriate for public disclosure.

You may review comments and other related materials that pertain to this information collection beginning on the date of publication of the second notice for this collection ^[1] by any of the following methods:

• Viewing Comments Electronically: Go to www.reginfo.gov. Click on the “Information Collection Review” tab. Underneath the “Currently under Review” section heading, from the drop-down menu select “Department of Treasury” and then click “submit.” This information collection can be located by searching by OMB control number “1557-0248” or “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery.” Upon finding the appropriate information collection, click on the related “ICR Reference Number.” On the next screen, select “View Supporting Statement and Other Documents” and then click on the link to any comment listed at the bottom of the screen.
• For assistance in navigating www.reginfo.gov,, please contact the Regulatory Information Service Center at [phone].
• Viewing Comments Personally: You may personally inspect comments at the OCC, 400 7th Street SW, Washington, DC. For security reasons, the OCC requires that visitors make an appointment to inspect comments. You may do so by calling [phone] or, for persons who are deaf or hearing impaired, TTY, [phone]. Upon arrival, visitors will be required to present valid government-issued photo identification and submit to security screening in order to inspect comments.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Shaquita Merritt, OCC Clearance Officer, [phone] or, for persons who are deaf or hearing impaired, TTY, [phone], Chief Counsel's Office, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 400 7th Street SW, Suite 3E-218, Washington, DC 20219.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Under the PRA (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), Federal agencies must obtain approval from OMB for each collection of information that they conduct or sponsor. The term “collection of information” is defined in 44 U.S.C. 3502(3) and 5 CFR 1320.3(c) and includes agency requests or requirements that members of the public submit reports, keep records, or provide information to a third party. Section 3506(c)(2)(A) of title 44 requires Federal agencies to publish a 60-day notice in the Federal Register concerning each proposed collection of information, including each proposed extension of an existing collection of information, before submitting the collection to OMB for approval. To comply with this requirement, the OCC is publishing this notice of the renewal of the following information collection:

Title: Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery.

OMB Control No.: 1557-0248.

Type of Review: Regular.

Affected Public: Businesses or individuals.

Frequency of Response: On occasion.

Burden Estimate:

Number of Respondents: 7,025.

Total Annual Burden: 2,850.

Description: This generic information collection request (ICR) provides a means to solicit qualitative customer and stakeholder feedback in an efficient, timely manner, in accordance with the Federal government's commitment to improving service delivery. Qualitative feedback is information that provides useful insights on perceptions and opinions but does not include statistical survey or quantitative results that can be attributed to the surveyed population. This qualitative feedback provides insights into customer or stakeholder perceptions, experiences, and expectations; provides an early warning of issues with service; and/or focuses attention on areas where communication, training, or changes in operations might improve delivery of products or services. It also enables ongoing, collaborative, and actionable communications between the OCC and its customers and stakeholders, while also utilizing feedback to improve program management.

The OCC's solicitations for feedback target areas such as timeliness, appropriateness, accuracy of information, courtesy, efficiency of service delivery, and resolution of issues related to service delivery. The OCC uses the responses to inform and plan efforts to improve or maintain the quality of service offered to the public. If the OCC does not collect this information, it will not have access to vital feedback from customers and stakeholders.

Under this generic ICR, the OCC will submit a specific information collection for approval only if the collection meets the following conditions:

• It is voluntary;
• It imposes a low burden on respondents (based on considerations of total burden hours, total number of respondents, or burden-hours per respondent) and a low cost on both respondents and the Federal government;
• It is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other Federal agencies;
• It is targeted to solicit opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or will have experience with the program in the near future;
• It includes personally identifiable information (PII) only to the extent necessary, and the OCC does not retain the PII; ^[2]

• It gathers information intended to be used internally only for general service improvement and program management purposes and not intended for release outside of the OCC;
• It does not gather information to be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions;
• It gathers information that will yield qualitative information and will not be designed or expected to yield statistically reliable results or used to reach general conclusions about the surveyed population; and
• Feedback collected provides useful information, but it does not yield data that can be attributed to the overall population.

If these conditions are not met, the OCC will submit an information collection request to OMB for approval through the normal PRA process.

The OCC will not use this type of generic clearance for the collection of qualitative feedback for any quantitative information collection.

As a general matter, these information collections will not result in any new system of records containing privacy information and will not ask questions of a sensitive nature.

Comments: Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized and included in the request for OMB approval. All comments will become a matter of public record. Comments are invited on:

(a) Whether the collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the OCC, including whether the information has practical utility;

(b) The accuracy of the OCC's estimate of the burden of the information collection;

(c) Ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected;

(d) Ways to minimize the burden of the collection on respondents, including through the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology; and

(e) Estimates of capital or start-up costs and costs of operation, maintenance, and/or purchase of services expended to provide information.

Dated: October 30, 2019.

Theodore J. Dowd,

Deputy Chief Counsel, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Footnotes

1.  Following the close of this notice's 60-day comment period, the OCC will publish a second notice with a 30-day comment period.

2.  The OCC may retain PII only in limited circumstances and, if it does so, the OCC must comply with applicable requirements, restrictions, and prohibitions of the Privacy Act of 1974 and other privacy and confidentiality laws that govern the collection, retention, use, and/or disclosure of such PII.