Presentation made by Amy Edwards, United States, at the 16th Annual OECD Accruals Symposium held at the OECD Conference Centre, Paris, on 21-22 March 2016.

1. Improving U.S. Federal Spending Transparency
Amy B. Edwards
Senior Advisor, Financial Transparency
U.S. Department of the Treasury

2. Background on U.S. Transparency
• Federal Financial Accountability and
Transparency Act– established
USAspending.gov in 2006
• Publish data for contracts, grants, other
financial assistance
• USAspending.gov management moved to
Treasury Department in 2014

3. USAspending.gov

4. New Transparency Law
Digital Accountability and Transparency Act
(DATA Act) of 2014:
– Expands USAspending.gov to include Federal
government expenditures
– Requires consistent data standards for all
reporting
– Enable the data to be used by multiple
communities
– New data reported in May 2017 at least quarterly

5. DATA Act Information Model Schema
The Schema provides a standardized definition and
conceptual model for the information relevant to the
domain and public reporting of US Federal spending.
The Schema informs:
• How data providers select and organize information to
submit
• What information is stored and how it is related
• How consumers can access and interpret information
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6. DATA Act Information Model Schema
• Data Elements Guidance (DEG) – contains a comprehensive
listing of the elements with supporting metadata to
understand context, relationships, and derivations
• Schema Diagrams – visual representations of how the data
elements fit together in context
• Online Data Dictionary – a list of data elements with
definitions and minimal metadata, like data type
• XBRL Schema Files – a machine-readable format of the
elements that federal agencies submit
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7. DATA Act Schema Diagrams
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8. Treasury’s Implementation Approach
• Data-Centric Extraction: Use technology to
minimize costly systems changes
• Agile Technology Development: Build systems
in 2-weeks sprints to reduce risk and improve
outcomes
• User-Centered Design: Develop the new
website in the public domain with real-time
collaboration with users
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9. User-Centered Design
• Launch an early beta site to allow the public to
shape the future USAspending.gov (or a
successor site)
• Public can post input and ideas to contribute
to the design of the site
• Ongoing integration of public feedback on the
development
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10. OpenBeta.USAspending.gov
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11. Feedback Added to Agile Development
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12. For More Information Visit:
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https://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/