supporting statement ICR CCMS 2018

SUPPORTING STATEMENT JUSTIFICATION FOR

CONSUMER COMPLAINT MONITORING SYSTEM

1. Circumstances Making Collection Of Information Necessary:

This is a request for a revision of an approved information collection, which addresses the Consumer Complaint Monitoring System (CCMS) web portal.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has been delegated the authority to exercise the functions of the Secretary as provided in the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA) (21 U.S.C. 601 et seq.), the Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA) (21 U.S.C. 451 et seq.), and the Egg Products Inspection Act (EPIA) (21 U.S.C. 1031 et seq.). These statutes mandate that FSIS protect the public by ensuring that meat and poultry products are safe, wholesome, unadulterated, and properly labeled and packaged.

FSIS tracks consumer complaints about meat, poultry, and egg products. Consumer complaints are usually filed because food made the consumer sick, caused an allergic reaction, was not properly labeled (misbranded), or contained a foreign object. The Agency uses a web portal to capture consumer complaint information.

2. How, By Whom and Purpose Information Is To Be Used:

The following is a discussion of the information collection activities.

CCMS Web Portal

The Consumer Complaint Monitoring System (CCMS) web portal is used primarily to track consumer complaints regarding meat, poultry, and egg products. Consumer complaints may lead at times to the recall of products. The web portal allows for this information to be collected 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

3. Use Of Improved Information Technology:

Under the Government Paperwork Elimination Act, the CCMS web portal is communicated electronically through the Internet to FSIS.

4. Efforts To Identify Duplication:

No FSIS office, USDA agency, or any other Government agency requires information relating to consumer complaints for meat, poultry, and egg products. There is no available information that can be used or modified.

5. Methods To Minimize Burden On Small Business Entities:

The data is submitted by individual consumers.

6. Consequences If Information Were Collected Less Frequently:

To conduct the information collections less frequently will reduce the effectiveness of the meat, poultry, and egg products inspection program.

7. Circumstances That Would Cause The Information Collection To Be Conducted In A Manner:

• requiring respondents to report informa­tion to the agency more often than quarterly;

• requiring respondents to prepare a writ­ten response to a collection of infor­ma­tion in fewer than 30 days after receipt of it;

• requiring respondents to submit more than an original and two copies of any docu­ment;

• requiring respondents to retain re­cords, other than health, medical, governm­ent contract, grant-in-aid, or tax records for more than three years;

• in connection with a statisti­cal sur­vey, that is not de­signed to produce valid and reli­able results that can be general­ized to the uni­verse of study;

• requiring the use of a statis­tical data classi­fication that has not been re­vie­wed and approved by OMB;

• that includes a pledge of confiden­tiali­ty that is not supported by au­thority estab­lished in statute or regu­la­tion, that is not sup­ported by dis­closure and data security policies that are consistent with the pledge, or which unneces­sarily impedes shar­ing of data with other agencies for com­patible confiden­tial use; or

• requiring respondents to submit propri­etary trade secret, or other confidential information unless the agency can demon­strate that it has instituted procedures to protect the information's confidentiality to the extent permit­ted by law.

All information collection activities in this submission are consistent with the guidelines listed above.

8. Consultation With Persons Outside The Agency:

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, FSIS published a 60-day notice (83 FR 13725) in the Federal Register on March 30, 2018, requesting comments regarding this information collection request. The Agency received two comments that were not relevant to the information collection. FSIS also contacted Julie Adams: 619-861-8069;

Hayley Aja: 231-342-3003; Caraline Dinunzio: 843-367-1504; and Jake Schneider: 717-712-3705 to request input on the Agency’s burden estimate. Based on their input, the Agency is making no change to the estimated time for completion of a consumer complaint.

9. Payment or Gifts to Respondents:

Respondents will not receive any gifts or payments.

10. Confidentiality Provided To Respondents:

No assurances other than routine protection provided under the Freedom of Information Act have been provided to respondents.

11. Questions Of A Sensitive Nature:

The applicants are not asked to furnish any information of a sensitive nature.

12. Estimate of Burden

The total burden estimate for the paperwork requirements associated with this information collection is 175 hours.

CCMS Web Portal

The Agency estimates that 750 consumers will respond one time taking 15 minutes to submit a consumer complaint through its web portal for an annual total of 750 responses and 175 burden hours.

CCMS WEB PORTAL

Type of Establish- Ment	No. of Respon-dents	No. of Responses per Respondent	Total Annual Responses	Time for Response in Mins.	Total Annual Time in Hours
Consumers	750	1	750	15	175

The cost to the respondents is estimated at $6,825 annually. The Agency estimates that it will cost respondents $39 an hour in fulfilling these paperwork and recordkeeping requirements. Respondents will spend an annual total of 175 hours and $6,825. The hourly rate for the respondents was attained from the Department of Labor Bureau of Labor and Statistics wage data, May, 2017.

13. Capital and Start-up Cost and Subsequent Maintenance

There are no capital and start-up costs and subsequent maintenance burdens.

14. Annual Cost To Federal Government:

The cost to the Federal Government for these information collection requirements is $5,850 annually. The costs arise primarily from the time spent by FSIS staff analyzing the information in the CCMS. The Agency estimates a cost of $39 per hour.

15. Reasons For Changes In Burden:

FSIS is discontinuing use of the electronic Food Safety Mobile questionnaire that was approved under this collection. Therefore, the Agency has reduced the burden estimate by 13 hours for the Food Safety Mobile questionnaire. Additionally, FSIS has reduced the burden hours for the CCMS web portal by 75 hours due to updated information about consumer complaints. There is a total reduction of 400 respondents, 400 responses, and 88 burden hours for the collection.

16. Tabulation, Analyses And Publication Plans:

There are no plans to publish the data for statistical use.

17. OMB Approval Number Display:

FSIS will display the OMB approval number on any instructions it publishes relating to recordkeeping activities.

18. Exceptions to the Certification:

There are no exceptions to the certification. This information collection accords with the certification in item 19 of the OMB 83-I.

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