The Federal Advisory Committee Act Annual Comprehensive Review

As required by 5 USC section 1006(b) of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended, we must conduct an Annual Comprehensive Review of the activities and responsibilities of each Federal advisory committee. The ACR is initiated by the our Committee Management Secretariat, with guidance on how to conduct the review, and relies on the cooperation of agency staff for reporting their data. 

What is the ACR Process?

Agency Responsibilities

Federal agencies are responsible for reporting data on each advisory committee, such as its purpose, performance measures, subcommittees (if applicable), meetings, membership, and cost, into the FACA database. Committee Management Officers, Designated Federal Officers, and other responsible agency officials, such as Group Federal Officers, enter this data for the advisory committees they are responsible for in their agency. 

GSA’s ACR Process

The ACR process is more than just data collection, review, and analysis via the FACA database. After the Secretariat closes out the data for each agency and department in the database each spring for the prior fiscal year, we then conducts the following actions to complete the ACR:

• Extracts the verified raw data from the database.
• Creates a series of downloadable datasets (in csv format) that are zipped and posted on the database. These files include data on the agency, committees, committee meetings, members, and advisory reports, committee interest areas, subcommittees, and subcommittee meetings, members, and advisory reports.
• Uploads the raw data into the FACA Dashboard for data analysis with graphical displays.
• Generates ACR files that mimic how the data was displayed for the Annual Reports to Congress (1972-1998) that were repealed by the Federal Reports Elimination and Sunset Act of 1995. This allows us and our users to compare data from 1972-present.