• The Parts of the Data Collection Form (DCF)
• The Questions in Each Part

  The Parts of the Data Collection Form (DCF) Each policy questionnaire contains three parts:

Mandates are laws and governmentwide regulations that require agency adherence.  Everything covered in the mandate section of the DCF is required by law or governmentwide regulation.  Citations are provided to the source of the requirement so agencies will know exactly what GSA is asking about and where the requirement originates.

Best Practices are about an agencies use of policies, procedures, and practices.  These have been shown to contribute to economical and efficient management, but which are not required by law or governmentwide regulation.  GSA gauges agency compliance with best practices in the second section of the DCF.

The third section of the DCF, GSA Feedback, provides the opportunity to tell GSA about issues with the regulations.  It is designed to help GSA improve regulations, systems, and interagency collaboration. 

  The Questions in Each Part

Each question within Parts 1 and 2 consists of 6 Sections (Part 3 is a questionnaire). 

Please respond to 6 Sections as follows:

A. This is a question about agency adherence with a particular policy.  Check "YES" if the agency has published guidance that reflects the requirement for the employees who work in the covered area.  This may be in the form of an employee handbook or other internal policy guidance that is available to personnel working within the area covered by this policy.  It may be printed on paper or published on an Intranet/Internet site. 

B. This question relates to how actively the policy is implemented.  Check "YES" if the agency has an active program for ensuring that the policy is followed.  Active adherence consists of two things: first, ensuring that employees are fully educated about the policy, and second, either taking steps to ensure that it will be obeyed, and/or conducting post-reviews to ensure that it was obeyed. 

C. This is where the agency provides evidence to verify the answer in section B.  Using narrative, links to web sites or documents, or attachments, support the "YES" response.  For "NO" answers, explain why there are no active practices (both before and after to ensure compliance).  This may include the fact that the agency has been granted a waiver or deviation by GSA or another entity empowered to do so.   If the agency is considered as having an OK or weak level of adherence, the agency will be prompted to select the primary reason for not following the policy.

D. The GSA review team will respond to answers in this section.  Additional information or clarification may be requested, along with a preliminary assessment of the agency's response.

E. Here agencies should answer any questions the GSA review team posed in Section D, and provide any missing information or clarification.  Sections D and E are the primary means of documenting any interchange between respondent and the GSA review team.  Agency representatives may also speak to or email the GSA contact for the policy area directly at any time during the process.

F. GSA will provide its final assessment of the agency's policy adherence in this section, using strong, ok, or weak.   (See "Evaluation Criteria" for more detail.)