NICHD Office of Committee Management (OCM)

What is the OCM?

The NICHD OCM, which resides in the NICHD Office of the Director, supports the NIH mission and its commitment to the health and well-being of people on the national and international levels.

The Office was established in 1996 to:

• Enable Institutes and Centers to more effectively and efficiently receive needed services;
  
• Facilitate the savings in full-time employee activities generally associated with centralization of services, while still allowing the Institutes and Centers to retain some control over the services they receive;
  
• Promote an increased level of consistency in the application of procedures and in the quality of operations across NIH committees; and
  
• Address the goals of reinvention/streamlining by promoting greater efficiency in the utilization of existing full-time employees.

What does the Office do?

The OCM is dedicated to assuring overall compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) Public Law 92-463.

FACA originally became law in 1972 to provide a system for governing the creation and operation of advisory committees within the Executive Branch of the United States Government. Federal agencies must adhere to FACA requirements and to FACA guidelines set forth by the General Services Administration. In addition, agencies must maintain systematic information on the nature, functions, and operations of advisory committees, and that they must appoint Committee Management Officers to oversee administration of the FACA requirements.

The NICHD OCM assures that all FACA requirements are met. The Office ensures that federal advisory committee meetings are legally held, that the meetings allow for discussion and decisions regarding health and health policy, and that these issues are deliberated to ensure that recommendations made are in the best interest of the public.

For more specific information about the services provided by the NICHD Office of Committee Management, visit the Services Provided section of this Web site.

Why does the NICHD have an OCM?

The NICHD Office acts as a competitive service center, a concept that emerged as a followup to the 1994 NIH Leadership Retreat as a way to provide flexibility in meeting and facilitating the NIH-mandated full-time employee reductions.

These service centers provide a formal vehicle for NIH Institutes and Centers to obtain services from other NIH Institutes and Centers for a variety of administrative tasks.

Service centers perform functions internally, through an intraagency agreement contract. The benefit of an internal service center is that increases the range and quality of services available, often with fewer staff, which means a lower overall cost to the NIH.