HR-4180 : Still Just a Bill

Fraud Reduction and Data Analytics Act of 2015

This bill requires the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to establish guidelines for federal agencies to establish financial and administrative controls to identify and assess fraud risks and design and implement control activities in order to prevent, detect, and respond to fraud, including improper payments.

The guidelines shall incorporate the leading practices identified in the report published by the Government Accountability Office on July 28, 2015, entitled "Framework for Managing Fraud Risks in Federal Programs."

The financial and administrative controls shall include:

• conducting an evaluation of fraud risks and using a risk-based approach to design and implement financial and administrative control activities to mitigate identified fraud risks;
• collecting and analyzing data from reporting mechanisms on detected fraud to monitor fraud trends and using that data and information to continuously improve fraud prevention controls; and
• using the results of monitoring, evaluation, audits, and investigations to improve fraud prevention, detection, and response.

Each agency shall submit as part of its annual financial report a report on its progress in:

• implementing such financial and administrative controls, the fraud risk principle in the Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, and OMB Circular A-123 leading practices for managing fraud risk;
• identifying risks and vulnerabilities to fraud; and
• establishing steps to curb fraud.

The OMB must establish a working group to: (1) improve the sharing of financial and administrative controls and other best practices and techniques for detecting, preventing, and responding to fraud and the sharing and development of data analytics techniques; and (2) submit a plan for a federal interagency library of data analytics and data sets for use by agencies and Offices of Inspectors General to facilitate the detection, prevention, and recovery of fraud.