ECS TACC Satisfaction Surveys_Supporting Statement

Health Resources and Services Administration

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

Early Childhood Systems Technical Assistance and Coordinating Center (ECS TACC) Customer Satisfaction Surveys

A. Justification

1. Circumstances of Information Collection

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) currently has approval under the generic clearance, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Control No. 0915-0212, to conduct customer satisfaction surveys and focus groups. This collection of information helps fulfill the requirements of:

1. Executive Order 12862, “Setting Customer Service Standards,” which directs Agencies to continually reform their management practices and operations to provide service to the public that matches or exceeds the best service available in the private sector.

This is a request for OMB approval of a qualitative voluntary customer satisfaction survey or focus group under HRSA’s generic clearance.

The Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s Division of Home Visiting and Early Childhood Systems (DHVECS) conducts numerous training and technical assistance (TA) activities to support Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (ECCS) awardees in the implementation of their grants. Both federal staff and contracted TA providers conduct TA activities. In order to assess ECCS awardee’s customer satisfaction in a timely manner and collect feedback on various TA activities, HRSA is proposing to implement a series of TA feedback and satisfaction surveys. Federal staff and contracted TA providers plan to use data from these surveys for program improvement purposes only. ECCS is supported under the Community Integrated Service Systems (CISS) statutory set-aside within the Title V MCH Block Grant (42 U.S.C. § 701(a)(3)), which seeks to foster the formation of comprehensive, integrated, community-level service systems for mothers and children.

Executive Order 12862 directs agencies that "provide significant services directly to the public" to "survey customers to determine the kind and quality of services they want and their level of satisfaction with existing services". The objectives of these data collection requests are to assess ECS awardee’s customer satisfaction with the training and TA services provided to them by federal staff and contracted TA providers. Federal staff and contracted TA providers will only leverage information collected through these survey tools to improve the quality and effectiveness of TA offerings or for program improvement purposes.

2. Purpose and Use of the Information

The purpose of this information collection request is to assess satisfaction with various training and TA activities offered through a contracted TA provider, the Early Childhood Systems Technical Assistance and Coordinating Center (ECS TACC). The overall purpose of the ECS TACC satisfaction surveys is to collect immediate awardee feedback on their TA experiences in order to make improvements to service delivery. Contractors will protect the integrity of the data collected, provide opportunities for honest feedback, and maintain the confidentiality of survey participants. Data analysis for each tool will include basic descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis of responses.

HRSA provides TA to awardees through multiple means. Specifically, the surveys included in this clearance package will evaluate customer satisfaction with the following TA activities: overall TA services, information requests, individualized TA, and webinars.

Awardee satisfaction surveys will effectively solicit feedback for different TA strategies, and are included in this clearance package. While in some cases different TA strategies are more successfully evaluated using different methods, HRSA has attempted to standardize these customer feedback and satisfaction surveys to ensure that findings are comparable across TA modalities.

This information collection request contains four types of customer feedback and satisfaction surveys:

• ECS TACC TA Community of Practice Survey (see Attachment A);

• ECS TACC Webinar Survey (see Attachment B);

• ECS TACC TA Resources/Products Survey (see Attachment C); and

• ECS TACC Semi-Annual Survey Interview Protocol (see Attachment D)

By tailoring the survey instruments, each survey will collect information that is pertinent to the specific types of TA activities.

TA participants will complete each survey following the conclusion of TA activities. Additionally, TA participants will have the opportunity to provide feedback annually regarding the overall set of ECS TACC offerings (Semi-Annual Survey Interview Protocol). Every participant will have the opportunity to provide feedback, though completion of the customer satisfaction responses is voluntary. TA participants will complete surveys anonymously; information from TACC Semi-Annual Survey Interviews will be anonymized prior to analysis.

Feedback will be summarized and used by federal staff and TA providers to identify the strengths and weaknesses of particular TA events, as well as be used more broadly to identify TA strategies, modalities, and content that TA participants find most useful. In addition, awardee feedback on TA activities conducted by contracted TA providers is an essential component of the assessment of contractor performance. By collecting this information, HRSA is better able to assess the performance of contractor personnel and promote accountability to high-quality TA delivered by contractors. Feedback and satisfaction data will also be used to inform a continuous quality improvement framework to test and refine TA strategies.

3. Use of Improved Information Technology

In general, HRSA plans to use web-based survey delivery software, such as Lime to provide the survey instruments to TA participants. The use of a web-based application will reduce reporting burden and ease data collection and analysis. Semi-Annual Survey Interviews will be conducted via a secure video conferencing platform, such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams, or via phone. HRSA estimates that 100% of survey responses will be collected electronically.

4. Efforts to Avoid Duplication

This information is not available through any other source and is not currently being collected. The proposed information collection is specific to participants in ongoing ECS TA activities.

5. Involvement of Small Entities

Proposed data collection includes participants in ECS TACC activities. Generally, participation in these activities does not involve small entities, as most participants represent awardee organizations, which are typically state governments. No small businesses will be involved in this proposed information collection. Additionally, completion of the data collection forms is purely voluntary.

6. Consequences if Information Collected Less Frequently

Information will be collected following the conclusion of ECS TACC activities to seek feedback on electronic communications tools, and twice each year to assess overall satisfaction with the TA offerings. Less frequent collection of this information will impede HRSA’s ability to use feedback and satisfaction data to tailor TA activities to awardee preferences and continually improve the quality of TA offerings. Contracted TA providers are contractually obligated to conduct, submit, and utilize awardee feedback and satisfaction surveys in order to assess their work and engage in improvement activities.

There are no legal obstacles to reduce the burden.

7. Consistency with the Guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.5(d)(2)

These surveys will be implemented in a manner fully consistent with 5 CFR 1320.5(d)(2).

8. Consultation outside the Agency

The notice required in 5 CFR 1320.8(d) was published in the Federal Register, 85 Fed. Reg. 81210, (December 15, 2020). No public comments were received.

9. Remuneration of Respondents

No remuneration is sought for this proposed data collection activity.

10. Assurance of Confidentiality

To date, the HRSA customer satisfaction surveys have not collected personally identifiable information from respondents. No personally identifiable information will be collected as part of this proposed data collection activity.

11. Questions of a Sensitive Nature

No questions of a sensitive nature will be asked as part of this proposed data collection activity.

12. Estimates of Annualized Hour Burden

Respondents:

Respondents include participants in ongoing ECS TA activities. HRSA estimates that approximately 320 responses and an average time to complete the TA feedback and satisfaction surveys of 0.25 hours. The total annual burden estimate for respondents is 79.2 hours.

This burden estimate is based on the number of TA activities included in contractual arrangements between HRSA and contracted TA providers.

Annual burden estimates:

Type of Collection	Number of Respondents1	Responses per Respondent	Total Responses	Hours per Respondent	Total Burden Hours	Wage Rate	Total Hour Cost
ECS TACC TA Community of Practice Survey	30	2	60	.08	4.8	$33.46 ($66.92 accounting for fringe benefits and overhead	$321
ECS TACC Webinar Survey	50	2	100	.08	8	$33.46 ($66.92 accounting for fringe benefits and overhead	$535
ECS TACC TA Resources/Products Survey	40	2	80	.08	6.4	$33.46 ($66.92 accounting for fringe benefits and overhead	$428
ECS TACC Semi-Annual Survey Interview Protocol	40	2	80	.75	60	$33.46 ($66.92 accounting for fringe benefits and overhead	$4,015
Total	160		320		79.2		$5,299

This information collection request contains four customer feedback and satisfaction activities: the ECS TACC TA Community of Practice Survey (see Attachment A); ECS TACC Webinar Survey (see Attachment B); ECS TACC TA Resources/Products Survey (see Attachment C); and ECS TACC Semi-Annual Survey Interview Protocol (see Attachment D). The annual burden estimate table (Exhibit 12.A) summarizes the number of respondents per year per form (note that respondents do not represent an unduplicated count as the same respondent may participate in multiple TA activities per year).

Planned frequency of information collection:

Information will be collected at the conclusion of each TA activity and twice annually (ECS TACC Semi-Annual Survey Interview Protocol).

13. Estimates of Annualized Cost Burden to Respondents

HRSA anticipates the total annualized cost to respondents to be $5,299 (Exhibit 12.A). No capital or start-up costs are associated with this information collection request. The total annualized cost estimate is related to the time for respondents to complete and submit satisfaction surveys. This annualized cost to respondents is based on the average wage of state government employed Social and Community Service Manager from the 20020 Bureau of Labor Statistics report on Wage Estimates (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021) multiplied by 2 to account for the costs of fringe benefits and overhead. The wage is then multiplied by the estimated total respondent hours for each form.

14. Estimates of Annualized Cost to the Government

Costs to the federal government fall into the following categories:

• Cost for overseeing contracted TA providers

• Costs of contractual support for survey administration, analysis, and reporting

Exhibit 14.A - Annual Cost to Government Estimates:

Type of Cost	Description of Services	Annual Cost
Oversight of Contractors (Government Program Analyst - 10%)	Federal staff time to oversee contractors who administer TA activities	$20,667
Cost of Contractual Support	Time and effort for contractors to administer, analyze, and report on satisfaction surveys	$67,010

HRSA anticipates the average annual cost for the federal government will include personnel costs for contractual oversight. This will include a federal program analyst at Grade 13 Step 1 ($49.68 hourly rate multiplied by two to account for fringe benefits and overhead) (Office of Planning and Management, 2021) for 208 hours. Additionally, the federal government supports the TA contractor who administers TA satisfaction surveys on behalf of the federal government. HRSA estimates that these activities constitute 5% of total contract costs.

The total cost to the federal government for these activities is $87,677 per year (Exhibit 14.A).

15. Change in Burden

Not Applicable. This is a new activity under HRSA’s generic clearance and will be included in the total burden currently approved by OMB under OMB Control No. 0915-0212.

16. Plans for Analysis and Timetable of Key Activities

Data analysis plans for each assessment tool will include providing basic descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis of response patterns. TA satisfaction surveys will be administered throughout the year following the conclusion of each TA activity and twice each year to evaluate overall TA offerings. Surveys administered by contracted TA providers will be summarized in monthly reports submitted to HRSA.

17. Exemption for Display of Expiration Date

No exemption is being requested. The expiration date will be displayed.

18. Certifications

This information collection activity will comply with the requirements in 5 CFR 1320.9.

1 The number of respondents is not an unduplicated count

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