Summary

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) took more than 7 years--5 years past the legislative deadline--to issue final regulations for the nationwide adoption and foster care data collection system, and states will not be required to begin sending data for the system until mid-1995. Without a nationwide system, federal and state policymakers have not had the demographic and other information they need to establish adoption and foster care policies. States developing child welfare information systems have also not known what data they should design their system to collect to meet reporting requirements for the nationwide system. In addition, although states have been receiving federal financial assistance to develop automated child welfare information systems, they have not, until recently, received adequate guidance from HHS on the capabilities the systems should have. HHS has started to address many of these issues. It has issued final regulations for the nationwide system, issued functional requirements for states' child welfare information, worked with states to develop a draft system model for other states to follow when developing their systems, and hired a contractor to help states develop their systems.

GAO found that: (1) HHS has taken over 7 years to issue final regulations for the nationwide Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), and states will not be required to send data until mid-1995; (2) because of the delay in issuing the regulations, HHS will not impose full penalties for noncompliance until October 1, 1998; (3) AFCARS will collect data on individual cases rather than aggregate state data, but it will not provide all the information necessary to develop child welfare policy at the federal, state, and local levels; (4) HHS has provided inadequate guidance to the states on what functional capabilities their systems should have because it believes it does not have specific authority to do so; (5) HHS has not assessed functional capabilities in its reviews of states' system planning documents and has only modestly encouraged states to share development information among themselves; (6) some states have developed innovative systems with key capabilities that would be useful in designing a model nationwide system; (7) HHS initiatives to address system implementation problems include issuing final regulations and functional system requirements, working with the states to develop a draft system model for other states to follow in developing their systems, and hiring a contractor to help states develop their systems; (8) several contractors are developing software to extract information from states' child welfare databases; and (9) HHS must sustain its leadership to implement the nationwide system.