Vice President Biden meets with Government Accountability and Transparency Board prior to the Board issuing the report on tracking all federal spending. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)In June 2011, the Government Accountability and Transparency Board (GAT Board) was created by the President to provide ideas for advancing transparency and accountability to all federal spending based on the successes and lessons learned by the Recovery Board in tracking Recovery spending. The GAT Board has worked closely with the Recovery Board to formulate first steps that should be taken. They have outlined their ideas in their December 2011 Report and Recommendations to the President.
The GAT Board recommended the government should:
- Adopt a framework to track and oversee spending, which would increase oversight effectiveness, efficiency, and collaboration between agencies and the Inspectors General community.
- Re-evaluate the systems and processes for collecting and displaying spending data, including consolidating and streamlining the numerous technologies currently being used.
- Implement a universal, standardized identification system for all federal awards, which will help to better reconcile spending information from multiple sources and allow for more effective analysis and oversight.
The report indicated that the Recovery Board has the oversight framework as well as data collection and display technologies already in place, all of which can be expanded beyond Recovery to include all federal government spending.
The GAT Board and the Recovery Board will continue to explore methods for improving visibility on federal spending to taxpayers. The GAT Board’s next report is schedule to be issued in June 2012.
Read the full report.