g r a b findingsand recommendations（g r b findingsand建议）.docVIP

Governmentwide Relocation Advisory Board Findings and Recommendations Submission Date: September 15, 2005 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Background On July 9, 2004, the General Services Administration (GSA) filed a Charter in Congress to establish a Governmentwide Relocation Advisory Board (GRAB) hereinafter also referred to as the Board under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA; Public Law 92-463). A number of factors motivated GSA’s Office of Governmentwide Policy (OGP) to convene the Board: Since 1996, GSA has gathered, analyzed, and reported travel data as required by Public Law 103-329, dated September 30, 1994, and codified in Title 5 of the United States Code, § 5707(c). With a greater or lesser degree of success, agencies have complied with GSA’s request for travel and transportation data, but the quality of the results has been poor. GSA published its first travel report, Federal Travel and Relocation, in October 1998; it covered FY 1996 data. GSA conducted subsequent surveys (1998, 2000, and 2002) but did not publish the results because data quantity was lacking and quality remained poor. Based upon the work of a Relocation Best Practices Committee, convened by GSA in 2003 to identify best practices from both the public and private sectors, OGP has published proposed regulations to incorporate many of the Committee’s recommendations in November 2004. However, a number of best practices required Congressional action, and GSA found that Federal relocation data was unavailable to build a business case to support desired changes. During the last three years, Government relocation expenses and expense-tracking practices have come under scrutiny by Congress. Specifically, Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, requested cost data to assess whether Government relocation costs are higher than necessary. Because several agencies were unable to provide the information he had requested or provided incomplete