Chief Data Officers (US0109)

Increased access to data and the use of rigorous evidence is essential to optimizing government services that improve the lives of American citizens. In recent years, though, many Federal Government agencies have become deluged by vast and expanding volumes of information that complicate their ability to manage, analyze, and integrate the data to inform public policy deliberations. Most Federal agencies do not yet have a senior official empowered to, and responsible for, coordinating the active use of data within their agencies. Consequently, and consistent with legislation signed into law by President Trump on January 14, 2019, the Administration will prioritize the appointment of a Chief Data Officer (CDO) at each CFO-Act agency. Each designated CDO will be required to possess the right level of competencies, experience, and training in – and will be responsible for improving the respective agency’s performance of – the suite of issues pertaining to data management, governance, collection, analysis, protection, use, and dissemination.

5. Create Agency-level Chief Data Officers

Main Objective

“The Administration will prioritize the appointment of a Chief Data Officer (CDO) at each CFO-Act agency.”

Milestones

None provided.

Editorial Note: For the complete text of this commitment, please see the United States’ action plan at: https://open.usa.gov/assets/files/NAP4-fourth-open-government-national-action-plan.pdf.

Commitment analysis

This commitment prioritizes the appointment of a Chief Data Officer (CDO) at each CFO-Act agency.

The Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act of 1990 reforms financial management of 24 federal agencies. [56] The requirement for all CFO Act agencies to appoint a CDO was mandated under the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (H.R. 4174). [57] CDOs shall be nonpolitical appointees “designated on the basis of demonstrated training and experience in data management, governance (including creation, application, and maintenance of data standards), collection, analysis, protection, use, and dissemination.” [58] The full text of the Commitment 5 includes this language verbatim.

The need for federal agency CDOs stems from the increasing amount of data that federal agencies collect, manage, and generate. According to Jane M. Wiseman, formerly of the Department of Justice:

As agencies become increasingly data-driven, the rapid acceleration of the volume of data available has generally exceeded the pace of growth in the ability of government to manage and use that data to make decisions. Many government agencies are awash in data but struggling to analyze and make sense of it. The exception is in cases where a government agency has appointed a leader to manage the transition to a data-driven culture. [59]

William Brantley, of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, notes that the U.S. federal government is perhaps the largest data producer worldwide, with federally-held data serving as a major driver of the American economy as businesses significantly use its data for decision-making purposes and to provide products or services to their customers. [60]

Regarding CDOs’ material impact, a growing body of evidence suggests that leveraging federal data efficiently via creating CDO positions can result in substantial federal cost savings. This is demonstrated by several recent examples from existing CDOs’ work at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (whose use of data to fight fraud has yielded a fivefold return on investment) and the U.S. Postal Service (whose use of data to reduce wasteful fund usage resulted in $920 million in savings in 2016). [61] And yet, the 10 largest federal agencies had only three cabinet-level CDOs prior to the Act’s passage, highlighting the potential for expanding CDO roles at federal agencies. [62] Only seven of twenty-four agencies subject to the Act’s CDO requirement had a CDO prior to the evidence-based policy act’s passage in January 2019. [63] Prioritizing the appointment of CDOs is therefore of both practical and material importance.

The commitment nevertheless has no clear relevance to OGP values. As an internal-facing government initiative, the commitment aims to better manage federal data, but does not explicitly aim to make data publicly available (thereby broadening public access to information) or facilitate public accountability. Nor will it involve the public in federal data management, thereby encouraging civic participation. The commitment also has no direct relevance to the OGP value of technology and innovation for access to information aside from the inherent use of data in the proposed CDO positions.

The commitment has a moderate potential impact given the potentially substantial cost savings the CDO positions could generate for the federal government, particularly given the current lack of CDOs at federal agencies. [64] There is also potential for data transparency and accountability via the creation of CDO positions, assuming better data management will make government-held data more readily accessible to the public. The commitment is nevertheless assessed as having limited relevance for open government and OGP values; its impact is therefore not assessed further.

Commitment 5. Create Agency-Level Chief Data Officers

● Verifiable: Yes

● Does it have an open government lens? No

● Potential for results: Moderate

● Completion: Complete

● Did it open government? No early results to report yet

This commitment had a clearly measurable deliverable, which was the appointment of a Chief Data Officer at each of the federal agencies covered by the 1990 Chief Financial Officers Act. These include all federal departments plus the Agency for International Development, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, GSA, the National Science Foundation, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Small Business Administration. [23]

Although when they were appointed was not clear, the IRM researcher was able to verify that all but one of the above-mentioned government agencies currently have a Chief Data Officer. [24] (The exception was the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for which status could not be confirmed.) This, however, does not mean increased government openness. As internal-facing measures, these appointments are likely to result in better management of federal data and possibly in considerable savings for the public administration. But they do not necessarily translate into more transparency or better public access to federal data.

It should also be noted, as pointed out by a civil society stakeholder, that the appointment of agency-level Chief Data Officers “was mandated by the Open Government Data Act (passed in late 2018 and signed into law in January 2019). So, the reason that we actually have Chief Data Officers now is the law got passed. … The government had to do it, so the commitment didn’t make any difference.” [25]

As reported by a government official, an outward-facing component was added to the commitment during its implementation: in October 2021 the Chief Data Officers Council held a public meeting to share updates and request feedback [26], and subsequently (after the end of the NAP’s official implementation period) released a podcast [27] and launched a LinkedIn page [28] to interact with the public. [29]