83 FR 12042 - Proposed Collection; Comment Request

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Federal Register Volume 83, Issue 53 (March 19, 2018)

[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 53 (Monday, March 19, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 12042-12044]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2018-05430]


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SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION


Proposed Collection; 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:
    OMWI Contract Standard for Contractor Workforce Inclusion, SEC 
File No. S7-02-15, OMB Control No. 3235-0725

    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'') is soliciting comments on the existing 
collection of information summarized below. The Commission plans to 
submit this existing collection of information to the Office of 
Management and Budget (``OMB'') for approval.
    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. To 
implement the acquisition-specific requirements of Section 342(c)(2) of 
the Dodd-Frank Act, the Commission adopted a Contract Standard for 
Contractor Workforce Inclusion (Contract Standard).
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    \1\ 12 U.S.C. 5452.
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    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

[[Page 12043]]

demonstrate that it has made good faith efforts to ensure the fair 
inclusion of minorities and women 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: The Commission estimates that 190 
contractors \2\ would be subject to the Contract Standard. 
Approximately 115 of these contractors have 50 or more employees, while 
75 have fewer than 50 employees. Since the last approval of this 
information collection, we adjusted the estimated number of contractors 
from 170 contractors to 190 contractors based on the number of 
contractors awarded contracts the last two years that were subject to 
the Contract Standard. In addition, we adjusted the number of 
contractors that have 50 or more employees and the number that have 
fewer than 50 employees to reflect the percentages of contractors 
meeting these workforce size thresholds among all contractors reviewed 
by OMWI for compliance with the Contract Standard during the last two 
years.
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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 burdens on the 
estimated 115 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 115 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 75 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\ We also revised the estimated time required to develop and 
update a plan for workforce inclusion of minorities and women since the 
last approval of this information collection. 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 450 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 375 hours. Thus, the Commission estimates the annual 
recordkeeping burden for such contractors would total 825 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 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 reginfo.gov.
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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

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under Commission service contracts with a dollar value of $100,000 or 
more.\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 usaspending.gov 
website showed that three subcontractors in FY 2016 and six 
subcontractors in FY 2017 had subcontracts of $100K or more. See 
data on subcontract awards available at http://usaspending.gov.
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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 100 
contractors each year and therefore we estimate the total annual 
reporting burden to be 100 hours.
    Written comments are 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. Consideration will 
be given to comments and suggestions submitted in writing within 60 
days of this publication. Please direct your written comments to Pamela 
Dyson, Director/Chief Information Officer, Securities and Exchange 
Commission, c/o Remi Pavlik-Simon, 100 F Street NE, Washington, DC 
20549 or send an email to: [email protected].

    Dated: March 13, 2018.
Eduardo A. Aleman,
Assistant Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2018-05430 Filed 3-16-18; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 8011-01-P