[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 86 (Tuesday, May 5, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 25747-25749]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-10398]
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SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request
Upon Written Request Copies Available From: U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission, Office of FOIA Services, 100 F Street NE.,
Washington, DC 20549-2736.
New Information Collection:
Contract Standard for Contractor Workforce Inclusion; SEC File
No. S7-02-15, OMB Control No. 3235-XXXX.
Notice is hereby given that, pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction
Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), the Securities and Exchange
Commission (the Commission) has submitted to the Office of Management
and Budget a request to approve the collection of information discussed
below.
Section 342 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer
Protection Act of 2010 (the Dodd-Frank Act) provided that certain
agencies, including the Commission, establish an Office of Minority and
Women Inclusion (OMWI).\1\ Section 342(c)(2) of the Dodd-Frank Act
requires the OMWI Director to include in the Commission's procedures
for evaluating contract proposals and hiring service providers a
written statement that the contractor shall ensure, to the maximum
extent possible, the fair inclusion of women and minorities in the
workforce of the contractor and, as applicable, subcontractors.
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\1\ 12 U.S.C. 5452.
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In addition, section 342(c)(3)(A) requires the OMWI Director to
establish standards and procedures for determining whether an agency
contractor or subcontractor ``has failed to make a good faith effort to
include minorities and women'' in its workforce. Section
342(c)(3)(B)(i) provides that if the OMWI Director
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determines that a contractor has failed to make good faith efforts, the
Director shall recommend to the agency administrator that the contract
be terminated. Upon receipt of such a recommendation, section
342(c)(3)(B)(ii) provides that the agency administrator may terminate
the contract, make a referral to the Office of Federal Contract
Compliance Programs of the Department of Labor, or take other
appropriate action.
The Commission developed a Contract Standard for Contractor
Workforce Inclusion (Contract Standard) to implement the requirements
of section 342(c) of the Dodd-Frank Act. The Contract Standard, which
will be included in the Commission's solicitations and resulting
contracts for services with a dollar value of $100,000 or more,
contains a ``collection of information'' within the meaning of the
Paperwork Reduction Act. The Contract Standard requires that a
Commission contractor provide documentation, upon request from the OMWI
Director, to demonstrate that it has made good faith efforts to ensure
the fair inclusion of minorities in its workforce and, as applicable,
to demonstrate its covered subcontractors have made such good faith
efforts. The documentation requested may include, but is not limited
to: (1) The total number of employees in the contractor's workforce,
and the number of employees by race, ethnicity, gender, and job title
or EEO-1 job category (e.g., EEO-1 Report(s)); (2) a list of covered
subcontract awards under the contract that includes the dollar amount
of each subcontract, date of award, and the subcontractor's race,
ethnicity, and/or gender ownership status; (3) the contractor's plan to
ensure the fair inclusion of minorities and women in its workforce,
including outreach efforts; and (4) for each covered subcontractor, the
information requested in items 1 and 3 above. The OMWI Director will
consider the information submitted in evaluating whether the contractor
or subcontractor has complied with its obligations under the Contract
Standard.
The information collection would be mandatory. The Commission
estimates that 170 contractors \2\ would be subject to the Contract
Standard. Approximately 120 of these contractors have 50 or more
employees, while about 50 contractors have fewer than 50 employees. For
the estimated 120 contractors that have 50 or more employees, the
Commission estimates that the information collection under the Contract
Standard would impose no new recordkeeping burdens. Such contractors
are generally subject to recordkeeping and reporting requirements under
the regulations implementing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act \3\ and
Executive Order 11246 (``EO 11246'').\4\ Contractors that have 50 or
more employees (and a contract or subcontract of $50,000 or more) are
required to maintain records on the race, ethnicity, gender, and EEO-1
job category of each employee under Department of Labor regulations
implementing EO 11246.\5\ The regulations implementing EO 11246 also
require contractors that have 50 or more employees (and a contract or
subcontract of $50,000 or more) to develop and maintain a written
program, which describes the policies, practices, and procedures that
the contractor uses to ensure that applicants and employees receive
equal opportunities for employment and advancement.\6\ In lieu of
developing a separate workforce inclusion plan, a contractor would be
permitted to submit its existing written program prescribed by the EO
11246 regulations as part of the documentation that demonstrates the
contractor's good faith efforts to ensure the fair inclusion of
minorities and women in its workforce. Thus, approximately 120
contractors are already required to maintain the information that may
be requested under the Contract Standard.
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\2\ Unless otherwise specified, the term ``contractors'' refers
to contractors and subcontractors.
\3\ 42 U.S.C. 2000e, et seq.
\4\ Executive Order 11246, 30 FR 12,319 (Sept. 24, 1965).
\5\ See 41 CFR 60-1.7.
\6\ See 41 CFR part 60-2.
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The estimated 50 contractors that employ fewer than 50 employees
are required under the regulations implementing EO 11246 to maintain
records showing the race, ethnicity and gender of each employee. The
Commission believes that these contractors also keep job title
information during the normal course of business. However, contractors
that have fewer than 50 employees may not have the written program
prescribed by the EO 11246 regulations or similar plan that could be
submitted as part of the documentation to demonstrate their good faith
efforts to ensure the fair inclusion of minorities and women in their
workforces. Accordingly, contractors with fewer than 50 employees may
have to create a plan to ensure workforce inclusion of minorities and
women.
In order to estimate the burden on contractors associated with
creating a workforce inclusion plan, the Commission considered the
burden estimates for developing the written programs required under the
regulations implementing EO 11246.\7\ As there is no regulatory
blueprint for a workforce inclusion plan, and contractors creating a
workforce inclusion plan are not required to perform the same types of
analyses required for the written programs prescribed by the EO 11246
regulations, the Commission believes that to develop a workforce
inclusion plan contractors with fewer than 50 employees would require
approximately a third of the hours that contractors of similar size
spend on developing the written programs required under the EO 11246
regulations. Accordingly, the Commission estimates that contractors
would spend about 24 hours of employee resources to develop a workforce
inclusion plan. The one-time implementation burden annualized would be
400 hours. After the initial development, the Commission estimates that
each contractor with fewer than 50 employees would spend approximately
10 hours each year updating and maintaining its workforce inclusion
plan. The Commission estimates that the annualized recurring
recordkeeping burden associated with the information collection would
be 350 hours. Thus, the Commission estimates that the annual
recordkeeping burden for such contractors would total 750 hours.
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\7\ According to the Supporting Statement for the OFCCP
Recordkeeping and Requirements-Supply Service, OMB Control No. 1250-
003 (``Supporting Statement''), it takes approximately 73 burden
hours for contractors with 1-100 employees to develop the initial
written program required under the regulations implementing EO
11246. We understand the quantitative analyses prescribed by the
Executive Order regulations at 41 CFR part 60-2 are a time-consuming
aspect of the written program development. As there is no
requirement to perform these types of quantitative analyses in
connection with a workforce inclusion plan under the proposed
Contract Standard, we believe the workforce inclusion plan will take
substantially fewer hours to develop. The Supporting Statement is
available at reginfo.gov.
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The Contract Standard also requires contractors to maintain
information about covered subcontractors' ownership status, workforce
demographics, and workforce inclusion plans. Contractors would request
this information from their covered subcontractors, who would have an
obligation to keep workforce demographic data and maintain workforce
inclusion plans because the substance of the Contract Standard would be
included in their subcontracts. Based on data describing recent
Commission subcontractor activity, the Commission believes that very
few subcontractors will have subcontracts
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under Commission service contracts with a dollar value of $100,000 or
more.\8\ These subcontractors may already be subject to similar
recordkeeping requirements as principal contractors. Consequently, the
Commission believes that any additional requirements imposed on
subcontractors would not significantly add to the burden estimates
discussed above.
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\8\ A search of subcontract awards on the usaspending.gov Web
site showed that four subcontractors in FY 2012 and three
subcontractors in FY 2013 had subcontracts of $100K or more. See
data on subcontract awards available at http://usaspending.gov.
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With respect to the reporting burden, the Commission estimates that
it would take all contractors on average approximately one hour to
retrieve and submit to the OMWI Director the documentation specified in
the Contract Standard. The Commission expects to request documentation
from up to 100 contractors each year and therefore the Commission
estimates the total annual reporting burden would be 100 hours.
The estimated annualized cost to contractors for the recordkeeping
and reporting burden hours resulting from the information collection
requirement under the Contract Standard is based on Bureau of Labor
Statistics data in the publication ``Employer Costs for Employee
Compensation'' (2014), which lists total compensation for management,
professional, and related occupations as $55 per hour and
administrative support as $25.\9\ With respect to the recordkeeping
burden for developing, updating, and maintaining the workforce
inclusion plan, the Commission estimates that 75 percent of the burden
hours would be management, professional, and related occupations and 25
percent would be administrative support. The Commission estimates that
the annualized cost related to the burden hours for the initial
development of a workforce inclusion plan is $19,000, and that the
annualized cost for the recurring recordkeeping burden is $16,625.
Thus, the Commission estimates that the annualized recordkeeping cost
related to compliance with the Contract Standard is $35,625 (50
contractors x $712.50 per contractor).
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\9\ For purposes of these calculations, the average salaries of
$54.95 and $24.76 have been rounded up.
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As for the reporting burden, the Commission estimates that 75
percent of the burden hours for retrieving and submitting documentation
to the OMWI Director would be administrative support and 25 percent
would be professional, management, and related occupations. The
Commission estimates that the annual reporting cost related to
compliance with the Contract Standard is $3250 (100 responses each year
x $32.50 per response).\10\
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\10\ The estimates of average burden hours and associated costs
are made solely for the purposes of the Paperwork Reduction Act and
are not derived from a survey or study of the paperwork burdens and
costs associated with the proposed information collection.
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On February 13, 2015, the Commission published for public comment a
notice of the proposed Contract Standard, which also included the
notice required under the Paperwork Reduction Act and allowed the
public 60 days to submit comments.\11\ The Commission received no
comments on the proposed information collection.
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\11\ See Contract Standard for Contractor Workforce Inclusion
and Request for Public Comment Release No. 34-74239 (February 10,
2015), 80 FR 8119 (February 13, 2015).
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Written comments continue to be invited on: (a) Whether this
collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of
the functions of the agency, including whether the information will
have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of
the burden imposed by the collection of information; (c) ways to
enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information collected;
and (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on
respondents, including through the use of automated collection
techniques or other forms of information technology.
An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required
to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a
currently valid OMB control number.
Background documentation for this information collection may be
viewed at the following Web site, www.reginfo.gov. Please direct
general comments to the following persons: (i) Desk Officer for the
Securities and Exchange Commission, Office of Management and Budget,
Room 10102, New Executive Office Building, Washington, DC 20503 or send
an email to Shagufta Ahmed at [email protected]; and (ii)
Pamela Dyson, Chief Information Officer, Securities and Exchange
Commission, c/o Remi Pavlik-Simon, 100 F Street NE., Washington, DC
20549 or send an email to: [email protected]. Comments must be
submitted within 30 days of this notice.
Dated: April 29, 2015.
Brent J. Fields,
Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2015-10398 Filed 5-4-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8011-01-P