The Emerging Information Manager Professional

Abstract

The Commission on Federal Paperwork was established by the 93rd Congress through the enactment of Public Law 93-556 (44 USC 3501, 88 Stat. 1789) to study and investigate statutes, policies, rules, regulations, procedures, and practices of the Federal Government relating to information gathering, processing, and dissemination, and the management and control of these information activities. While the Commission’s principal mandate was to seek ways to reduce the “unprecedented paperwork burden upon private citizens, receipients of federal assistance, businesses, governmental contractors, and state and local governments” it quickly became apparent that excessive paperwork was not just a case of conflicting, confusing and overlapping agencies, rules and regulations, but could be traced in large part to the failure to treat information as a valuable national resource, no less essential to the survival of government, industry and the individual citizen than are human, material or natural resources. Information and data, the Commission stressed, is a resource that is in need of conservation, recycling, and protection—in other words, management. The Commission found that treatment of information as a free good by government is a root cause of excessive paperwork and red tape.