WASHINGTON — The Office of the National Ombudsman at the U.S. Small Business Administration recently released its annual report to the 110th Congress, rating federal agencies’ responsiveness to the regulatory enforcement issues small businesses faced during fiscal year 2006.

Created by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act, the Office of the National Ombudsman works with each federal agency that has regulatory authority over small businesses to ensure regulatory issues are handled and enforced fairly.

The report summarizes small businesses’ experiences with various federal agencies, and assigns each agency a “grade” based on their responsiveness to small business concerns.  

Agencies made great progress in 2006, increasingly improving their responsiveness to small businesses. For example, in the last three years federal agencies decreased their response time to comments submitted by the National Ombudsman by 35 days, to an average 30-day turnaround. Also, the quality of responses has increased significantly, often leading to faster and more effective resolutions.

The report to Congress is available online at: www.sba.gov/aboutsba/sbaprograms/ombudsman/ombud_annualreports.html.