***Please Note: original blog text was revised 11/19/2013 to notify the public that any feedback received will be made public
As Chairman Wheeler announced in his initial blog post upon joining the FCC, improving agency processes and procedures to more efficiently and effectively serve the public interest is one of his top priorities. As Special Counsel to Chairman Wheeler, I have been tasked with developing a plan within the next 60 days that includes recommendations on how best to tackle the challenge of reforming FCC processes.
In connection with that effort, we are soliciting public input on improving the efficiency of how we conduct business here at the FCC. We know that stakeholders who interact with the FCC will have many thoughts on substantive reforms that the agency should undertake, but for this effort, we are particularly interested in your ideas and insights to improve the efficiency of the process at the FCC.
Please email your thoughts and ideas on FCC process reform to innovation@fcc.gov (note that comments related to specific ongoing proceedings should be filed in those dockets and not in response to this blog post). PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR INPUT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, BUT NO LATER THAN DECEMBER 2nd, SO THAT WE HAVE SUFFICIENT TIME TO EVALUATE RESPONSES.
In particular, we are interested in any thoughts on what concrete steps the FCC can take to:
- Streamline, update and eliminate inefficient, outdated or duplicative processes;
- Improve the effectiveness of communications between the public and the FCC;
- Make information collections and reports more focused, transparent and relevant;
- Expand the overall transparency of the workings of the agency; and
- Any other ideas to improve the focus, speed and efficiency of the FCC’s workflows.
This is only the beginning of this round of process reform efforts at the FCC, which builds on the many steps taken in past years. We hope to have an ongoing dialogue both internally and externally about what the agency can do to be more responsive, efficient, and effective. Your insights will be useful to developing recommendations for process reform, and we look forward to hearing your ideas and incorporating them into my report and recommendations to Chairman Wheeler. Please note that any information you submit to innovation@fcc.gov will be made public in connection with my report to the Chairman.
Thank you in advance for your input!
Diane Cornell
Special Counsel to Chairman Tom Wheeler