A new Open Government Working Group and ’senior accountable officials’ will help drive the Obama administration’s push for government transparency.

By Elizabeth Montalbano,  InformationWeek

The White House has named the senior officials in federal government who will drive President Obama’s Open Government Directive, as well as the leaders at each government agency with responsibility for data quality.

The newly formed Open Government Working Group is comprised of 34 government agency managers from a variety of job functions, including CIO, CTO, COO, chief management officer, and chief architect. The working group is focused on transparency, accountability, participation, and collaboration in U.S. government as part of Obama’s open government initiative.

In addition, the White House named senior officials in each federal agency who will be accountable for the quality of information related to federal spending that’s released to the public through USAspending.gov and other sites.

The assignment of that responsibility is one of the requirements set forth in the Open Government Directive, which was released in December in response to Obama’s call for increased transparency and openness in the federal government. These “senior accountable officials” are tasked with ensuring that financial information released to the public conforms to Office of Management and Budget guidance on information quality and that adequate systems and processes are in place within their agencies to support that requirement.

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