Part IV: List of Recommendations

Download (PDF)

I. Fund the House Digital Service’s Casework Data Aggregator pilot

• The Committee on House Administration and the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee should direct funding from the House Modernization Fund to support HDS’ continued work on the Data Aggregator Pilot.

II. Casework and oversight staff should be trained together to facilitate and encourage collaboration and information sharing

• Internal and civil society organizations currently offering in-depth training to Congressional staff on oversight should continue to explore ways to co-train casework and oversight staff to build relationships and encourage staff to collaborate on shared issue areas.

III. Congress should develop minimum baseline standards for agency timeliness and best practices in responding to Congressional inquiries

• The Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Modernization should request a report from the Government Accountability Office on agency responsiveness to Congressional casework, including recommendations for minimum standards and agency personnel needed to ensure timely and accurate responses.

• The House and Senate Oversight Committees and/or committees of jurisdiction over the major casework agencies should consider holding annual or biannual hearings on casework resolution, focused on issues identified as national trends through the casework data aggregator.

• Committees of jurisdiction should consider hosting annual hearings on agency responsiveness to casework.

IV. The Congressional staff directory should include caseworker issue areas where applicable, and be made available to agency liaisons

• The House Chief Administrative Officer is already working on developing a legislative branch-wide staff directory, updated with legislative staff issue areas. The CAO should also consider including casework staff issue areas, and making the directory available to federal agency liaisons.

V. Facilitate information sharing among caseworkers

• The House Chief Administrative Officer and Senate Sergeant-at-Arms should explore additional technical solutions to facilitate asynchronous caseworker knowledge sharing.

• The House CAO could consider asking Microsoft to increase the number of people who can participate in a Teams chat for the House Caseworkers Assistance forum in the House’s Microsoft enterprise contracts.

• The Committee on House Administration could direct the House Digital Service, possibly in partnership with the Congressional Research Service, to explore options for establishing a caseworker-wide collaborative internal website for caseworkers to share knowledge.

• The CAO could consider making a program like Slack for Government available on a pilot basis to casework teams in a specific delegation.

VI. Permit caseworkers to cohost events with or refer constituents to local nonprofit organizations.

• The Committee on House Administration and Senate Rules Committee should explore allowing House offices flexibility to cohost events with or refer constituents to nonprofit organizations.

VII. Explore options to provide surge capacity for casework teams in crisis

• Given the relative number of local disasters facing casework teams, the Committee on House Administration should prioritize developing a method to surge emergency staff capacity to Congressional offices experiencing a local disaster to assist with emergency intake, triage, and proactive public education.

VIII. Continue to prioritize casework-specific mental health and training resources

• The Committee on House Administration and the Senate Rules Committee should work with their respective Employee Assistance programs to ensure that they have the resources and flexibility to continue to prioritize casework-specific mental and emotional health supports.

IX. Establish a nonpartisan Casework Liaison Office

• The Committee on House Administration and Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee should act to establish a nonpartisan Casework Liaison Office within the Chief Administrative Officer tasked with supporting casework and casework staff to promote the House’s ability to provide excellent constituent services. Specific duties may include serving as a central point of contact for agencies to distribute timely information to caseworkers; serving as a liaison between caseworkers and agencies to resolve widespread problems; partnering with other Congressional support offices to help connect caseworkers to existing training and support resources; partnering with other Congressional support offices to assist with standing up or winding down casework operations; providing long-term development and product management for HDS’ casework data aggregator; etc.

• Starting in the House may provide the opportunity to capitalize on existing modernization momentum, and allow later expansion to the Senate.