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Audit of the CPSC’s Pre-Dissemination Review of Scientific Information

Date Issued
Report Number
26-A-03
Report Type
Audit
Number of Recommendations
8
Description
This report contains the results of our assessment of the effectiveness of the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) internal control over the pre-dissemination review (PDR) of scientific information, and the CPSC’s compliance with relevant laws and regulations regarding the PDR of scientific information.  We determined that the CPSC had inadequate policies and procedures for identifying the type of influential information that might require peer review and inadequate internal controls over the PDR process in general.  Current agency management generally concurred with our findings and recommendations and have reported that they have already taken initial corrective action regarding some of the issues raised in our report.
Questioned Costs
$0
Funds for Better Use
$0
View report on Oversight.gov
Download a PDF of this Report

Open Recommendations

Establish policies and implement procedures that provide specific guidance to program managers for the identification of scientific information products that are influential. These procedures shall include a process for determining whether a scientific information product is a principal basis for a decision by a federal decision maker.

Train appropriate employees on the established policies and implement procedures for the identification of scientific information products that are influential.

Based on the lack of evidence that such an assessment was previously performed, perform an analysis on rulemakings conducted after the issuance of OMB’s M-19-15 and determine if a scientific assessment was the principal basis for a decision by a federal decision maker.

Based on the results of the analysis performed for recommendation 3, perform appropriate administrative corrective actions, if necessary.

Perform a risk assessment that covers compliance with the Information Quality Act.

Review account access permission levels in the agency clearance workflow so that only users with a valid business purpose have appropriate access.

Establish policies and procedures for monitoring activities of the agency clearance workflow, to include the review of master data, access authorizations, and system access.

Establish policies and procedures for monitoring activities for compliance with both OMB and agency-specific policies for performing pre-dissemination review of scientific information.