Notice2021-20117
Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
September 17, 2021
Issuing agencies
Securities and Exchange Commission
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 86 Issue 178 (Friday, September 17, 2021)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 178 (Friday, September 17, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 51949-51951]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2021-20117]
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SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
[SEC File No. 270-666; OMB Control No. 3235-0725]
Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request
Upon Written Request Copies Available From: U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission, Office of FOIA Services, 100 F Street NE,
Washington, DC 20549-2736
Extension:
OWMI Contract Standard for Contractor Workforce Inclusion
Notice is hereby given that, pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction
Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), the Securities and Exchange
Commission (``Commission'') has submitted to the Office of Management
and Budget (``OMB'') a request for extension of the previously approved
collection of information discussed below.
Section 342 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer
Protection Act of 2010 (the Dodd-Frank Act) provided that certain
agencies, including the Commission, establish an Office of Minority and
Women Inclusion (OMWI).\1\ Section 342(c)(2) of the Dodd-Frank Act
requires the OMWI Director to include in the Commission's procedures
for evaluating contract proposals and hiring service providers a
written statement that the contractor shall ensure, to the maximum
extent possible, the fair inclusion of women and minorities in the
workforce of the contractor and, as applicable, subcontractors.
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\1\ 12 U.S.C. 5452.
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In addition, section 342(c)(3)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act requires
the OMWI Director to establish standards and procedures for determining
whether an agency contractor or subcontractor ``has failed to make a
good faith effort to include minorities and women'' in its workforce.
Section 342(c)(3)(B)(i) provides that if the OMWI Director determines
that a contractor has failed to make good faith efforts, the Director
shall recommend to the agency administrator that the contract be
terminated. Upon receipt of such a recommendation, section
342(c)(3)(B)(ii) provides that the agency administrator may terminate
the contract, make a referral to the Office of Federal Contract
Compliance Programs of the Department of Labor, or take other
appropriate action. To implement the acquisition-specific requirements
of Section 342(c) of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Commission adopted a
Contract Standard for Contractor Workforce Inclusion (Contract
Standard).
The Contract Standard, which is included in the Commission's
solicitations and resulting contracts for services with a dollar value
of $100,000 or more, contains a ``collection of information'' within
the meaning of the Paperwork Reduction Act. The Contract Standard
requires that a Commission contractor provide documentation, upon
request from the OMWI Director, to demonstrate that it has made good
faith efforts to ensure the fair inclusion of minorities in its
workforce and, as applicable, to demonstrate its covered subcontractors
have made such good faith efforts. The documentation requested may
include, but is not limited to: (1) The total number of employees in
the contractor's workforce, and the number of employees by race,
ethnicity, gender, and job title or EEO-1 job category (e.g., EEO-1
Report(s)); (2) a list of covered subcontract awards under the contract
that includes the dollar amount of each subcontract, date of award, and
the subcontractor's race, ethnicity, and/or gender ownership status;
(3) the contractor's plan to ensure the fair inclusion of minorities
and women in its workforce, including outreach efforts; and (4) for
each covered subcontractor, the information requested in items 1 and 3
above. The OMWI Director will consider the information submitted in
evaluating whether the contractor or subcontractor has complied with
its obligations under the Contract Standard.
The information collection is mandatory.
Estimated number of respondents: Based on a review of the last two
fiscal years since the most recent approval of this information
collection, the Commission estimates that 175 contractors would be
subject to the Contract Standard.\2\ Approximately 102 of these
contractors have 50 or more employees, while 73 have fewer than 50
employees.
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\2\ Unless otherwise specified, the term ``contractors'' refers
to contractors and subcontractors.
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Estimate of recordkeeping burden: The information collection under
the Contract Standard imposes no new recordkeeping burden on the
estimated
[[Page 51950]]
102 contractors that have 50 or more employees. Such contractors are
generally subject to recordkeeping and reporting requirements under the
regulations implementing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act \3\ and
Executive Order 11246 (``E.O. 11246'').\4\ Their contracts and
subcontracts must include the clause implementing E.O. 11246--FAR
52.222-26, Equal Opportunity. In addition, contractors that have 50 or
more employees (and a contract or subcontract of $50,000 or more) are
required to maintain records on the race, ethnicity, gender, and EEO-1
job category of each employee under Department of Labor regulations
implementing E.O. 11246.\5\ The regulations implementing E.O. 11246
also require contractors that have 50 or more employees (and a contract
or subcontract of $50,000 or more) to demonstrate that they have made
good faith efforts to remove identified barriers, expand employment
opportunities, and produce measurable results,\6\ and to develop and
maintain a written program, which describes the policies, practices,
and procedures that the contractor uses to ensure that applicants and
employees receive equal opportunities for employment and
advancement.\7\ In lieu of developing a separate plan for workforce
inclusion, a contractor may submit its existing written program
prescribed by the E.O. 11246 regulations as part of the documentation
that demonstrates the contractor's good faith efforts to ensure the
fair inclusion of minorities and women in its workforce. Thus,
approximately 102 contractors are already required to maintain the
information that may be requested under the Contract Standard.
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\3\ 42 U.S.C. 2000e, et seq.
\4\ Executive Order 11246, 30 FR 12,319 (Sept. 24, 1965).
\5\ See 41 CFR 60-1.7.
\6\ See 41 CFR 60-2.17(c).
\7\ See 41 CFR part 60-2.
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The estimated 73 contractors that employ fewer than 50 employees
are required under the regulations implementing E.O. 11246 to maintain
records showing the race, ethnicity and gender of each employee. We
believe that these contractors also keep job title information during
the normal course of business. However, contractors that have fewer
than 50 employees may not have the written program prescribed by the
E.O. 11246 regulations or similar plan that could be submitted as part
of the documentation to demonstrate their good faith efforts to ensure
the fair inclusion of women and minorities in their workforces.
Accordingly, contractors with fewer than 50 employees may have to
develop a plan to ensure workforce inclusion of minorities and women.
In order to estimate the burden on contractors associated with
developing a plan for ensuring the inclusion of minorities and women in
their workforces, we considered the burden estimates for developing the
written programs required under the regulations implementing E.O.
11246.\8\ Based on OMWI's review of the plans and other documentation
submitted by contractors with fewer than 50 employees to demonstrate
compliance with the Contract Standard, we believe such contractors
would require approximately 25 percent of the hours that contractors of
similar size spend on developing the written programs required under
the E.O. 11246 regulations. Accordingly, we estimate that contractors
would spend about 18 hours of employee resources to develop a plan for
workforce inclusion of minorities and women. This one-time
implementation burden annualized would be 438 hours. After the initial
development, we estimate that each contractor with fewer than 50
employees would spend approximately 8 hours each year updating and
maintaining its plan for workforce inclusion of minorities and women.
The Commission estimates that the annualized recurring burden
associated with the information collection would be 365 hours. Thus,
the Commission estimates the annual recordkeeping burden for such
contractors would total 803 hours.
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\8\ According to the Supporting Statement for the OFCCP
Recordkeeping and Requirements-Supply Service, OMB Control No. 1250-
0003 (``Supporting Statement''), it takes approximately 73 burden
hours for contractors with 1-100 employees to develop the initial
written program required under the regulations implementing E.O.
11246. We understand the quantitative analyses prescribed by the
Executive Order regulations at 41 CFR part 60-2 are a time-consuming
aspect of the written program development. As there is no
requirement to perform these types of quantitative analyses in
connection with the plan for workforce inclusion of minorities and
women under the Contract Standard, we believe the plan for workforce
inclusion will take substantially fewer hours to develop. The
Supporting Statement is available at <a href="http://reginfo.gov">reginfo.gov</a>.
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The Contract Standard requires contractors to maintain information
about covered subcontractors' ownership status, workforce demographics,
and workforce inclusion plans. Contractors would request this
information from their covered subcontractors, who would have an
obligation to keep workforce demographic data and maintain plans for
workforce inclusion of minorities and women because the Contract
Standard is included in their subcontracts. Based on data describing
recent Commission subcontractor activity, we believe that few
subcontractors will have subcontracts for services with a dollar value
of $100,000 or more under Commission service contracts.\9\ These
subcontractors may already be subject to similar recordkeeping
requirements as principal contractors. Consequently, we believe that
any additional requirements imposed on subcontractors would not
significantly add to the burden estimates discussed above.
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\9\ A search of subcontract awards on the <a href="http://usaspending.gov">usaspending.gov</a>
website showed that three subcontractors in FY 2016 and six
subcontractors in FY 2017 had subcontracts of $100,000 or more. See
data on subcontract awards available at <a href="http://usaspending.gov">http://usaspending.gov</a>.
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Estimate of Reporting Burden: With respect to the reporting burden,
we estimate that it would take all contractors on average approximately
one hour to retrieve and submit to the OMWI Director the documentation
specified in the proposed Contract Standard. We expect to request
documentation from up to 50 contractors each year and therefore we
estimate the total annual reporting burden to be 50 hours.
On July 8, 2021, the Commission published a notice in the Federal
Register (86 FR 36167) of its intention to request an extension of this
currently approved collection of information, and allowed the public 60
days to submit comments. The Commission received no comments.
Written comments continue to be invited on: (a) Whether this
collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of
the functions of the agency, including whether the information will
have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of
the burden imposed by the collection of information; (c) ways to
enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information collected;
and (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on
respondents, including through the use of automated collection
techniques or other forms of information technology.
The public may view the background documentation for this
information collection at the following website, <a href="http://www.reginfo.gov">www.reginfo.gov</a>. This
information collection can be found by selecting ``Currently under 30-
day Review--Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search function.
Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information
collection should be sent to: (i) <a href="http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain">www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain</a> and
(ii) David Bottom, Director/Chief
[[Page 51951]]
Information Officer, Securities and Exchange Commission, c/o Cynthia
Roscoe, 100 F Street NE, Washington, DC 20549 or by sending an email
to: <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#5f0f0d1e00123e36333d30273a2c1f2c3a3c71383029"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="db8b899a8496bab2b7b9b4a3bea89ba8beb8f5bcb4ad">[email protected]</span></a>. Comments must be submitted to OMB within 30
days of this notice.
Dated: September 14, 2021.
J. Matthew DeLesDernier,
Assistant Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2021-20117 Filed 9-16-21; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8011-01-P
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