2020-17629. Submission of Information Collection for OMB Review; Comment Request; Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery

AGENCY:

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

ACTION:

Notice of intent to request extension of OMB approval without change.

SUMMARY:

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is requesting that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) extend approval, under the Paperwork Reduction Act, of the collection of information on qualitative feedback on PBGC's service delivery (OMB Control Number 1212-0066; expires October 31, 2020). This notice informs the public of PBGC's request and solicits comments on the information collection. This collection of information was developed as part of a Federal Government-wide effort to streamline the process for seeking feedback from the public on service delivery.

DATES:

Comments must be received on or before September 11, 2020.

ADDRESSES:

Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of this notice to https://www.reginfo.gov/​public/​do/​PRAMain. Find this particular information collection by selecting “Currently under 30-day Review—Open for Public Comments” or by using the search function.

A copy of the request will be posted on PBGC's website at https://www.pbgc.gov/​prac/​laws-and-regulation/​federal-register-notices-open-for-comment. It may also be obtained by writing to Disclosure Division, Office of the General Counsel, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, 1200 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20005-4026, or calling 202-326-4040 during normal business hours. TTY users may call the Federal Relay Service toll-free at 800-877-8339 and ask to be connected to 202-326-4040.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Melissa Rifkin ([e-mail]), Attorney, Regulatory Affairs Division, Office of the General Counsel, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, 1200 K Street NW, Washington DC 20005-4026; 202-229-6563. (TTY users may call the Federal Relay Service toll-free at 800-877-8339 and ask to be connected to 202-229-6563.)

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

The information collection activity will gather qualitative customer and stakeholder feedback in an efficient, timely manner, in accordance with PBGC's commitment to improving service delivery. Qualitative feedback means information that provides useful insights on perceptions and opinions, but the information requests are not statistical surveys that yield quantitative results generalizable to the population of interest. This feedback provides insights into customer or stakeholder perceptions, experiences and expectations, provides early warnings of issues with service, and focuses attention on areas where changes in PBGC's communication with the public, in training of staff, or in operations might improve the delivery of products or services. These collections will allow for ongoing, collaborative and actionable communications between PBGC and its customers and stakeholders. These collections also allow feedback to contribute directly to the improvement of program management.

The solicitation of feedback targets areas such as: timeliness, appropriateness, accuracy of information, courtesy, efficiency of service delivery, and resolution of issues with service delivery. Responses will be assessed to plan and inform efforts to improve or maintain the quality of service offered to the public. If this information were not collected, vital feedback from customers and stakeholders on PBGC's services would be unavailable.

PBGC only submits a collection for approval under this generic clearance if it meets the following conditions:

• The collections are voluntary;
• The collections are low-burden for respondents (based on considerations of total burden hours, total number of respondents, or burden-hours per respondent) and are low-cost for both the respondents and the Federal Government;
• The collections are non-controversial and do not raise issues of concern to other Federal agencies;
• Any collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the near future;
• Personally identifiable information (PII) is collected only to the extent necessary and is not retained;
• Information gathered will be used only internally for general service improvement and program management purposes and is not intended for release outside of the agency;
• Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions; and
• Information gathered will yield qualitative information; the collections will not be designed or expected to yield statistically reliable results or used as though the results are generalizable to the population of interest.

As noted, feedback collected under this generic clearance does not produce results generalizable to the population of interest. This type of generic clearance for qualitative information will not be used for quantitative information collections that are designed to yield reliably actionable results, such as monitoring trends over time or documenting program performance. Collections with such objectives require more rigorous designs that address: The target population to which generalizations will be made, the sampling frame, the sample design (including stratification and clustering), the precision requirements or power calculations that justify the proposed sample size, the expected response rate, methods for assessing potential non-response bias, the protocols for data collection, and any testing procedures that were or will be undertaken prior to fielding the study.

As a general matter, information collections will not result in any new system of records containing privacy information and will not ask questions of a sensitive nature, such as sexual behavior and attitudes, religious beliefs, and other matters that are commonly considered private.

The collection of information has been approved by OMB under control number 1212-0066 (expires October 31, 2020). On May 27, 2020, PBGC published in the Federal Register (at 85 FR 31824) a notice informing the public of its intent to request an extension of this collection of information without modification. PBGC did not receive any comments about this collection of information. PBGC is requesting that OMB extend its approval for another three years. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.

Annually, over the next three years, PBGC estimates that it will conduct three activities involving about 1,630 respondents, each of whom will provide one response. The number of respondents will vary by activity: 40 for usability testing, 90 for focus groups (nine groups of ten respondents), and 1,500 for customer satisfaction surveys. PBGC estimates the annual burden of this collection of information as 635 hours: 2 hours per response for usability testing (total 80 hours); 2 hours per response for focus groups (total 180 hours); and 15 minutes per response for customer satisfaction surveys (total 375 hours). No cost burden to the public is anticipated.

Issued in Washington, DC.

Hilary Duke,

Assistant General Counsel for Regulatory Affairs, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.