US. EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20507 reves ean

R s
Office of Research, woes ,
Information and Planning ae

May 19, 2010

The Honorable Susan Tsui Grundmann, Chairman
US. Merit Systems Protection Board

Office of the Chairman

1615 M Street, NW

Washington, DC 20419-0002

Dear Ms. Grundmann:

This responds to your invitation to the Chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) to review and comment on the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board’s
(MSPB) Open Government Plan (Plan), developed pursuant to the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB)-issued “Open Government Directive” (Directive), dated December 8, 2009.

After careful review of the Plan, we note that, overall, MSPB has successfully crafted the ‘first
draft’ of a sustainable document that currently satisfies the obligations under both the January 21,
2009, Presidential Memorandum. titled “Transparency and Open Government,” and_ the
December 8, 2009, OMB Directive. Moreover, it tracks well against the criterion reieased by
OMB in its “Open. Government Plan Self Evaluation form,”— drawn directly from the text of the
Directive as a guide to agencies’ in the appropriate development of content for their plans.
Therefore, we find no substantive changes are warranted at this time.

We note favorably the following items’ concerning your plan. MSPB’s proniotion of greater
public participation in the adjudicatory function, by. providing the opportunity to submit amicus
briefs, appears. innovative. The agency’s plan to hold oral ‘arguinents in cases of significance to
the Federal sector employment community is also noteworthy.

EEOC offers the following suggestions and comments for your consideration.

: A Table ‘of Contents would. be helpful. When the Plan is posted electronically, individuals
should be. able. to click on the “Specific section(s) off interest, ~

. The ‘Yntroduction should clearly” state the specific requirements of the Open Government
wzyPlan.

= It,might be useful to condense the Introduction and consider moving’ Section 2 (Steps
cTaken’by the MSPB in Developing this Plan) to an Appendix/Attachment; Section 3
"(Publication and Updating of the MSPB’s Open Government Plan) could then be moved
to the Introduction. © ,



= The first two sentences in Section 3, regarding data sets, should be moved to Section 4,
Improving Transparency at the MSPB.

= An attempt was made to download the MSPB data sets from the Excel spreadsheets
located on the agency's Open Government Web page (www.mspb.gov/open). See the
reference in Section 3, page 3. However, they are not spreadsheets. They must be
imported as comma delimited files. Even then, at the end of the file there is some
information in the HTML markup. This is confusing to the reader.

= A definition of “high-value” data/information should be included in the Plan.

= The current description of the Flagship Initiative is written in general terms. The
description of the Flagship Initiative should include how the improvements to
transparency, participation, and/or collaboration will be measured. It should also explain
how MSPB will know when the Flagship Initiative has achieved sustainability and/or if
there is room for improvement?

= Under Section 9, it is not clear whether the reported measures of success listed.on pages
13 and 14 refer specifically to the agency's Flagship Initiative/Outreach efforts under
Section 7. Or, whether they more generally reflect MSPB's efforts to adopt overarching
measures that incorporate the principles or transparency, participation, and collaboration
into the core mission objectives of the agency.

We hope this information is helpful to you and appreciate the opportunity to review MSPB’s
current Open Government Plan. Please contact me if you have any questions at

Deidre.Flippen@eeoc.gov.

Sincerely, ‘

Deidre M. Flippen, Director
Office of Research, Information and Planning