What is GSA doing to make it's data more accessible?

Members of NFDA continue to voice their concerned that the lease data in the Government's websites is inaccurate and because leases and such data no longer go into FPDS or USASpending.gov, many NFDA members are finding that such documents are also inaccessible. Furthermore, important information on private sector landlords housing federal agencies is either not available, not standardized or is not searchable at all; therefore many conclusions drawn from federal websites have been found to be erroneous. One solution is The DATA Act, which is supposed to create better accountability for taxpayers and citizens; improve federal management by illuminating waste and fraud; and reduce compliance costs by automating the creation of reports such as the data that used to be found within FPDS. While GSA is working very hard to improve the accuracy with which this type data is reported, due to the way the system was built (for goods and service contracts), leases are still not able to be fit neatly and accurately into this system. 

Another problem with this data is the fact that not everything coded as a lease is a real property lease. Reimbursable work (such as an emergency generator installation in a leased building) is also coded to the lease contract (accurate contract-wise, but doesn't translate well into FPDS). Conclusion: the information found in FPDS and USASpending.gov is grossly inaccurate when it comes to leases, so DO NOT RELY ON IT.  I'm certain that GSA would be more than happy to provide us with accurate data from their "internal systems," but how can one outside the system draw more meaningful, accurate conclusions?  In addition to The Data Act, NFDA will meet with regularly the GSA's analytics team to make sure our members have the accurate information to analyze. GSA recognizes that NFDA members provide a valuable resource to those interested in PBS and together we can help to make the data fully searchable for all citizens, taxpayers, and companies.