White Paper - NPC

Veterans Health Administration White Paper

OMB No. 2900-0783 (Nonprofit Program Office in the Office of Research and Development)

May 2016

Background:

The information collected is necessary to provide adequate oversight of the NPCs and provide Congress with detailed information annually and upon request. Currently, there are 83 VA Nonprofit Research and Education Corporations (NPCs) with another one in the planning stage to be established in 2016.

The NPPO is a VHA program office that operates as a liaison between VHA and NPCs. The NPPO is responsible for coordinating policy regarding NPCs and provides oversight, guidance and education to ensure compliance with applicable regulations and VA policies affecting the operation and financial management of NPCs. This includes responsibility for performing on- and off-site reviews, substantive reviews of annual reports submitted by each NPC, and for compiling such annual report data for VA’s required annual report to Congress. Additionally, the NPPO institutes measures to ensure that any deficiencies in the operation and management of an NPC are corrected in an appropriate and timely manner.

Request:

Minimal changes have been made on three of the four collection documents. These changes are highlighted below:

The NPC Annual Report Template, VA Form 10-10073

In addition to the above, Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) have had discrepancies in the number of those approved and the number of those activated; therefore the following questions were added on Tab 13:

7. The number of new CRADA agreements submitted to STAR for approval.

8. The number of new CRADAs started with revenues received.

We also added at Tab 9, a list of all CRADA revenue sources and the amounts. It was impossible to reconcile the CRADA revenue to other reports and to arrive at a true and correct total which is of great interest to many report users.

NPPO Internal Control Questionnaire, VA Form 10-10073B

Changes made to this form were minimal and a result of errors, i.e. repeat questions or outdated activities. These items were deleted. Added to this form were questions of regulations that had been published in VHA Handbook 1200.17 in April 2016. The number of questions and the pages remained relatively the same.

NPPO Operations Oversight Questionnaire, VA Form 10-10073C

Minimal Changes were made to this form, some for spacing issues, the questions were redrafted for clarity and ease of reading. No additional questions were added.