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Open Recommendations (70 total)

Telecommunications: Agencies Should Fully Implement Established Transition Planning Practices to Help Reduce Risk of Costly Delays

GAO-20-155
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should ensure that the agency's Chief Information Officer completes efforts to identify future telecommunications needs using a complete inventory of existing telecommunications services; conducts and documents a comprehensive strategic analysis at all bureaus to identify areas for optimization and sharing of telecommunications resources; evaluates the costs and benefits of implementing new telecommunications technology and alternative options at all bureaus; and fully aligns Commerce's telecommunications needs with its long-term IT plans and enterprise architecture. (Recommendation 2)
Open
Commerce concurred with this recommendation. Commerce officials stated that many of the department's bureaus plan to or have already transitioned services to a comparable service. However, as of January 2024, it did not provide evidence to demonstrate its efforts to identify future telecommunications needs using a complete inventory of existing telecommunications services; conducting and documenting a comprehensive strategic analysis at all bureaus to identify areas for optimization and sharing of telecommunications resources; evaluating the costs and benefits of implementing new telecommunications technology and alternative options at all bureaus; and fully aligning Commerce's telecommunications needs with its long-term IT plans and enterprise architecture We will continue to follow-up on the department's efforts to implement this recommendation.

Export Promotion: Commerce Should Improve Workforce Planning and Management of Its Global Markets Unit

GAO-23-105369
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should ensure that there is a workforce plan that comprehensively and strategically considers GM's entire overseas and domestic workforce and describes leadership action to improve diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. (Recommendation 3)
Open
The Department of Commerce, the International Trade Administration (ITA), and Global Markets (GM) concurred with our recommendations. They said that GM must manage the relationships between its three workforce segments to ensure the systemic linkages between them remain in balance and have upward productivity gains, aligned with their ongoing desire to invest in technology enhancements. They believed this work will allow GM to deliver a comprehensive, iterative workforce plan, which they will map out this fiscal year. In the process, they planned to document linkages with ITA-level efforts related to employees hired using Title 5 authorities. They reported recent success in standardizing and linking its position descriptions for almost all client-facing Civil Service and Locally Employed Staff overseas as a notable starting point. In addition, ITA and GM are working on an ITA wide table of organization which will maintain position information and employee data that will provide a complete picture of filled and vacant positions across ITA. They plan to use the Office of Personnel Management's workforce planning model to serve as a best practice guide and template for GM's efforts to prepare, draft and finalize a comprehensive workforce plan. We will continue to monitor their progress.

2020 CENSUS: Additional Actions Could Strengthen Field Data Collection Efforts

GAO-17-191
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce and Under Secretary for Economic Affairs should direct the Census Bureau to revise and test procedures on how to better leverage enumerator-collected information on the best time or day to conduct interviews, and ensure enumerators are properly trained on these procedures.
Open
Commerce agreed with this recommendation. In January 2018, Bureau officials told us that leveraging enumerator collected information on the best time to conduct an interview would not be a part of questionnaire design's functionality for 2020 and will most likely rely on the system optimizer to determine the best time to contact a household. Bureau officials indicated they may push this recommendation out to 2030. During the 2018 Test, we continued to observe that enumerator notes were not being systematically reviewed by supervisors and managers, such that information such as office hours for apartment managers among other information we reported on was not being used by the operation. In June 2019, the Bureau informed us that it had added functionality to the enumerator device for enumerators to alert their supervisors (CFS) of case notes of "high importance" and was revising training to explain its use. Additionally, in December 2019, the Bureau shared documentation that reiterated the importance of enumerators reviewing prior case notes but clarified that enumerators should not expect their supervisors to regularly review those case notes. However, in April 2020, Bureau officials indicated that it was not likely that the Bureau would revise CFS training to systematically review case notes for the 2020 cycle, and in March 2021 we reported on the Bureau's use of the optimizer to assign and route cases using an algorithm that identifies the best time of day to enumerate. As of March 2024, we await Bureau officials to conclude analysis related to how field data collection will be managed for the 2030 Census, expected by the end of September 2024. To fully implement this recommendation for future fieldwork later in the decade, the Bureau needs to make better use of the information collected by enumerators during interview attempts about when to make additional attempts, such as during the reported working hours of property managers for large multi-unit structures that house a large number of non-respondents and revise CFS training to require that CFS review case notes.

Steel and Aluminum Tariffs: Commerce Should Update Public Guidance to Reflect Changes in the Exclusion Process

GAO-22-104564
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should ensure that the Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security creates a policy to regularly assess and update its public guidance to ensure that it is consistent and accurately reflects the time the agency takes to decide exclusion requests. (Recommendation 2)
Open
The Department of Commerce agreed with this recommendation and stated that it will work to update published average timeframes for decisions as part of an overarching review of existing public guidance regarding the Section 232 Exclusion Process. As of November 2023, Commerce officials stated that they planned to issue guidance in 2024 addressing the issues that GAO has raised. GAO will continue to monitor Commerce's efforts to implement this recommendation.

Federal Chief Information Officers: Critical Actions Needed to Address Shortcomings and Challenges in Implementing Responsibilities

GAO-18-93
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should ensure that the department's IT management policies address the role of the CIO for key responsibilities in the five areas we identified. (Recommendation 5)
Open
The agency agreed with the recommendation and, in October 2018, described a number of steps it planned to take to address the responsibility gaps identified in the report. As of January 2024, of the 16 responsibility gaps we identified, Commerce has partially addressed four. Two of the responsibilities are no longer applicable due to a sunset provision in the law. The remaining 10 responsibilities have not been established through policy. We will continue to monitor the steps agency takes to address these requirements

Economic and Commercial Diplomacy: State and Commerce Could Build on Efforts to Improve Coordination and Effectiveness

GAO-22-105860
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Commerce should ensure their agencies include information on whether incentives are available to encourage State and Commerce and their staff to participate in Deal Teams in their guidance cables for the Deal Team Initiative. (Recommendation 10)
Open
As of April 2023, we continue to monitor Commerce's actions in response to this recommendation.

Telecommunications: Agencies Should Fully Implement Established Transition Planning Practices to Help Reduce Risk of Costly Delays

GAO-20-155
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should ensure that the agency's Chief Information Officer finalizes the responsibilities related to the information security management role during the telecommunications transition, and assigns the roles for providing legal expertise during the transition, as well as for managing human capital, telecommunications assets, and information security during the transition, to staff members; describes how changes and disruptions related to the transition will be communicated to end users at all bureaus and identifies the key local and regional agency transition officials responsible for disseminating information about the transition to employees and working with the vendor to facilitate transition activities in Commerce's transition communications plan; and establishes and implements configuration and change management processes for its transition. (Recommendation 3)
Open
Commerce concurred with this recommendation. Commerce officials stated that the bureaus are reaching out to all subject matter offices to help with the EIS transition, general counsel offices are helping with contracts, and cyber security professionals to support all transition activities. Further, the department stated that one of its bureaus has fully implemented the role of the Chief Information Security Office in the EIS transition. However, as of January 2024, it did not provide evidence of addressing this recommendation. We will continue to follow-up on the department's efforts to implement this recommendation.

Steel and Aluminum Tariffs: Agencies Should Ensure Section 232 Exclusion Requests Are Needed and Duties Are Paid

GAO-23-105148
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should ensure that the Under Secretary for Industry and Security fully assesses the effectiveness of the quantity certification requirement BIS put in place and takes further actions, as needed, to improve the Section 232 exclusion request process. (Recommendation 1)
Open
In commenting on the report, Commerce concurred with this recommendation. The comments noted the known challenges in administering the Section 232 Exclusions Portal and stated that Commerce had proactively begun to take steps to limit the amount of unutilized and underutilized exclusions prior to the release of the report. In January 2024, Commerce stated that it would conduct an internal analysis of unutilized or underutilized quantities since mid-2019 in order to understand the impact of the quantity certification and volume certification reviews. This analysis will review the number of exclusions and quantities requested to determine whether the reviews have had an impact on requestor behavior. Finally, Commerce will also incorporate regular tracking of exclusion quantities and volume certification reviews into its existing weekly Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) so trends can be better monitored in real-time. Commerce expects to complete this by June 30, 2024. GAO continues to monitor Commerce's actions in response to this recommendation.

Telecommunications: Agencies Need Better Controls to Achieve Significant Savings on Mobile Devices and Services

GAO-15-431
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce To help the department effectively manage spending on mobile devices and services, the Secretary of Commerce should ensure a reliable department-wide inventory of mobile service contracts is developed and maintained.
Open
In January 2024, the Department of Commerce Office of the Chief Information Officer stated that the department did not have an inventory of mobile service contracts and described steps it was taking to develop one. We will continue to monitor the department's efforts.

2020 Census: Lessons Learned from Planning and Implementing the 2020 Census Offer Insights to Support 2030 Preparations

GAO-22-104357
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce
Priority Rec.
The Secretary of Commerce and the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau should develop a plan to improve resiliency of its 2030 Census research and testing activity in response to Bureau-identified budget uncertainty, including but not limited to specifying the tests and projects that are most important to conduct. (Recommendation 1)
Open
The Census Bureau agreed with our recommendation, and in September 2022, provided numerous documents describing and demonstrating actions the Bureau was taking to improve its budget development, execution, and oversight. The Bureau has also identified two program risks to the 2030 Census related to budget uncertainty and reported drafting contingency plans for those risks. In February 2023, Bureau officials confirmed this as a priority they were working to address. As of March 2024, we are monitoring how risks to implementation of the Bureau's testing plan are accounted for in forthcoming operational planning documents. In order to fully address this recommendation, the Bureau will need to demonstrate how its 2030 Census tests and projects that are most important to conduct are protected from budget uncertainty.
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