Federal agencies have not provide homeowners nearing foreclosure with enough information on how to receive help to keep their homes, says the General Accountability Office.

The GAO faulted the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve for failing to analyze the number of borrowers who could benefit from consent decrees with 16 of the nation's largest mortgage services that were reached in the wake of the financial crisis.

“Without [good evaluation procedures], regulators may miss opportunities to determine how well servicers’ foreclosure prevention actions ... provide help to borrowers to retain their homes,” the investigative arm of Congress concluded in a report release Tuesday.

The GAO added analysis of the value of actions by servicers to mitigate foreclosures may have provided information for regulators to consider in assessing the sufficiency of the $4 billion in cash payments to homeowners and $6 billion in foreclosure prevention assistance to 4.4 million homebuyers.

The GAO said the agencies should have looked at various reports to determine the number of borrowers who could have been helped with foreclosure assistance. They also should have obtained data on the servicers’ recent volume of foreclosure actions, it said.

GAO noted the $6 billion in assistance was not intended to address specific problems, concerns, law violations or unsafe or unsound mortgage practices found by the regulators’ examiners.