WASHINGTON — Responding to growing concern about bureaucratic bloat, a federal agency announced Wednesday the creation of the Task Force on Task Force Proliferation, a 60-member panel charged with determining why the agency has so many task forces.
"We currently have 212 task forces, 48 working groups, and a blue-ribbon commission that nobody can find," said an agency spokesperson. "We felt the only responsible thing to do was form one more to get to the bottom of it."
The new task force will be supported by three subcommittees, an advisory council and a steering group, which will steer the advisory council. Its first meeting, scheduled for next spring, will focus on choosing a logo.
The task force has been given a budget of $14 million and a deadline of "eventually." Officials said they hope to deliver an interim report recommending the creation of a permanent office to oversee all future task forces, which would then need its own task force.
Not everyone is pleased. A rival agency criticized the move, saying it had been studying the problem for years through its own Task Force on Unnecessary Task Forces, which recently released a 900-page report recommending further study.
At press time, the agency confirmed that a new working group had been formed to determine whether the Task Force on Task Force Proliferation was itself necessary.