Freedom of Information Act: Processing Trends Show Importance of
Improvement Plans (30-MAR-07, GAO-07-441).
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) establishes that federal
agencies must provide access to their information, enabling the
public to learn about government operations and decisions. To
help ensure proper implementation, the act requires that agencies
report annually to the Attorney General, giving specific
information about their FOIA operations, such as numbers of
requests received and processed and median processing times.
Also, a recent Executive Order directs agencies to develop plans
to improve FOIA operations, including decreasing backlog. For
this study, GAO was asked to examine the status and trends of
FOIA processing at 25 major agencies as reflected in annual
reports, as well as the extent to which improvement plans contain
the elements emphasized by the Executive Order. To do so, GAO
analyzed the 25 agencies' annual reports and improvement plans.
-------------------------Indexing Terms-------------------------
REPORTNUM: GAO-07-441
ACCNO: A67575
TITLE: Freedom of Information Act: Processing Trends Show
Importance of Improvement Plans
DATE: 03/30/2007
SUBJECT: Executive orders
Federal agencies
Federal Information Processing Standards
Federal law
Freedom of information
Government information
Government information dissemination
Information disclosure
Reporting requirements
Reports management
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GAO-07-441
* [1]Report to Congressional Requesters
* [2]March 2007
* [3]FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT
* [4]Processing Trends Show Importance of Improvement Plans
* [5]Contents
* [6]Results in Brief
* [7]Background
* [8]The FOIA Process at Federal Agencies
* [9]The Privacy Act Also Provides Individuals with Access
Rights
* [10]Roles of OMB and Justice in FOIA Implementation
* [11]Annual FOIA Reports Were Established by 1996 Amendments
* [12]Executive Order Required Agencies to Take Several
Actions to Improve FOIA Operations
* [13]Status of FOIA Processing Appears Similar to Previous Years,
but Limitations in Annual Report Data Present Challenges
* [14]Not All Data from USDA's Farm Service Agency Are
Reliable, but Its Improvement Plan Provides Opportunity to
Address This Weakness
* [15]Except for SSA, Increases in Requests Received and
Processed Are Generally Slowing
* [16]Most Requests Are Granted in Full
* [17]Processing Times Vary, but Broad Generalizations Are
Limited
* [18]Agency Pending Cases Continue to Increase
* [19]No Regular Mechanism Is in Place for Aggregating Annual
Report Data
* [20]Agency Improvement Plans Generally Included Areas of
Improvement Emphasized by the Executive Order
* [21]All Agencies Addressed Reducing Backlog, and Most Set
Measurable Goals and Milestones
* [22]Most Agencies Plan to Increase Public Dissemination of
Records through Web Sites
* [23]Most Agency Plans Included Improving Status
Communications with FOIA Requesters
* [24]Agencies Generally Plan to Rely on FOIA Reference Guides
to Increase Public Awareness of FOIA Processing
* [25]Conclusions
* [26]Matters for Congressional Consideration
* [27]Recommendations for Executive Action
* [28]Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
* [29]Scope and Methodology
* [30]Comments from the Department of Agriculture
* [31]Comments from the Department of Justice
* [32]Comments from the Department of the Treasury
* [33]Comments from the Department of Veterans Affairs
* [34]Comments from the Agency for International Development
* [35]Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency
* [36]Comments from the National Science Foundation
* [37]Freedom of Information Act Exemptions
* [38]Median Processing Times Reported
* [39]Agency for International Development
* [40]Central Intelligence Agency
* [41]Department of Homeland Security
* [42]Department of Commerce
* [43]Department of Defense
* [44]Department of Energy
* [45]Department of the Interior
* [46]Department of Justice
* [47]Department of Labor
* [48]Department of Transportation
* [49]Department of Education
* [50]Environmental Protection Agency
* [51]General Services Administration
* [52]Department of Health and Human Services
* [53]Department of Housing and Urban Development
* [54]National Aeronautics and Space Administration
* [55]Nuclear Regulatory Commission
* [56]National Science Foundation
* [57]Office of Personnel Management
* [58]Small Business Administration
* [59]Social Security Administration
* [60]Department of State
* [61]Department of the Treasury
* [62]Department of Veterans Affairs
* [63]GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
Report to Congressional Requesters
March 2007
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT
Processing Trends Show Importance of Improvement Plans
Contents
Tables
Figures
Abbreviations
March 30, 2007 Letter
The Honorable William Lacy Clay
Chairman
Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
House of Representatives
The Honorable Todd Platts
House of Representatives
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)^1 establishes that federal agencies
must provide the public with access to government information, thus
enabling them to learn about government operations and decisions. Specific
requests by the public for information through the act have led to
disclosure of waste, fraud, abuse, and wrongdoing in the government, as
well as the identification of unsafe consumer products, harmful drugs, and
serious health hazards.
To help ensure appropriate implementation, the act requires that agencies
provide annual reports on their FOIA operations to the Attorney General;
these reports include information as specified in the act, such as how
many requests were received and processed in the previous fiscal year, how
many requests were pending at the end of the year, and the median times
that agencies or their components took to process requests.^2 Since 2001,
we have provided the Congress with periodic analyses of the contents of
these annual reports.^3
In December 2005, the President issued an Executive Order aimed at
improving agencies' disclosure of information consistent with FOIA.^4
Among other things, this order required each agency to review its FOIA
operations and develop improvement plans;^5 by June 14, 2006, each agency
was to submit a report to the Attorney General and the Director of the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) summarizing the results of the
agency's review and including a copy of its improvement plan. These plans
were to include specific outcome-oriented goals and timetables, by which
the agency head is to evaluate the agency's success in implementing the
plan.
The Executive Order directs agencies in their FOIA improvement plans to
focus on ways to
oeliminate or reduce any backlog of requests;
oincrease reliance on public dissemination of records including through
Web sites;
oimprove communications with requesters about the status of their
requests; and
oincrease public awareness of FOIA processing.
In July 2006, we testified before the Subcommittee on Government
Management, Finance, and Accountability, House Committee on Government
Reform, providing preliminary results of our ongoing analyses of the 2005
annual reports as well as of the improvement plans required by the
Executive Order.^6 This report provides the final results of our
analyses.^7
As agreed, our objectives were to determine (1) the status of agencies'
processing of FOIA requests as reflected in their annual reports for
fiscal years 2002 through 2005, highlighting any trends in these reports
since 2002, and (2) to what extent the agency FOIA improvement plans
contain the elements emphasized by the Executive Order.
To describe statistics on the processing of FOIA requests, we analyzed
annual report data for fiscal years 2002 through 2005 from 25 major
agencies (herein we refer to this scope as governmentwide). We examined
data from the 24 agencies covered by the Chief Financial Officers Act,
plus the Central Intelligence Agency. However, we eliminated one of the 25
agencies--the Department of Agriculture--from our analysis because one of
its major components reported that not all its data were reliable. As a
result, our statistical analysis for this report was based on data from a
total of 24 agencies' annual reports.^8
To determine to what extent the agency plans contained the elements
emphasized by the order, we analyzed the plans for all 25 agencies to
determine whether they addressed each area of improvement that was
emphasized and contained goals and timetables for each.^9 We evaluated the
versions of plans submitted as of December 15, 2006. We also reviewed the
Executive Order itself, implementing guidance issued by OMB and the
Department of Justice, other FOIA guidance issued by Justice, and our past
work in this area. A more detailed description of our scope and
methodology is provided in appendix I.
We conducted our review in accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards. We performed our work from May 2006 to January 2007 in
Washington, D.C.
Results in Brief
Based on data reported by 24 major agencies in annual FOIA reports from
2002 to 2005,^10 the public continued to submit more requests for
information from the federal government through FOIA. Despite increasing
the numbers of requests processed, many agencies did not keep pace with
the volume of requests that they received. As a result, the number of
pending requests carried over from year to year has been steadily
increasing. According to agency reports:
oRecently the rate of increase in requests received and processed has
flattened. Except for one agency--the Social Security Administration
(SSA)^11--these increases were only about 3 and 2 percent from 2004 to
2005 (compared to 29 and 27 percent from 2002 to 2005).
oFor most requests processed in fiscal year 2005, responsive records were
provided in full. The percentage (87 percent) is about the same as in
previous years.
oMedian times to process requests varied greatly. These ranged from less
than 10 days for some agency components to more than 100 days at others
(sometimes much more than 100).
oNumbers of pending requests carried over from year to year continue to
increase. Also, the rate of increase is growing.^12
Our ability to generalize in one of these areas--FOIA processing times--is
limited by the form in which the statistics are reported: that is, as
required by the act, agencies report median processing times, not
averages.^13 Working with median data only, it is not statistically
possible to combine results from different agencies to develop broader
generalizations (such as a governmentwide statistic based on all agency
reports, or an agencywide statistic based on separate reports from all
components of the agency).^14 This limitation on aggregating data impedes
the development of broader pictures of FOIA operations, which would be
helpful both for public accountability and for effectively managing agency
FOIA programs. Further, we omitted from our statistical analysis data from
the Department of Agriculture because of the unreliability of data
reported by a major component (the Farm Service Agency, which appeared to
account for about 80 percent of the department's data). Providing annual
report data that are generalizable and accurate is important to meeting
the act's goal of providing visibility into government FOIA operations.
Finally, in the absence of a requirement that data from the annual reports
be summarized or aggregated (a function that the Department of Justice, in
its FOIA oversight role, has performed in the past), the public and the
Congress have no consistent means of obtaining a governmentwide picture of
FOIA processing.
The 25 agencies submitted improvement plans that mostly included goals and
timetables addressing the four areas of improvement emphasized by the
Executive Order. Based on the results of agencies' reviews of their FOIA
operations, the plans also included other improvement activities (such as
improving automation and increasing staff training) that are expected to
contribute to achieving the goals of the Executive Order. Out of 25 plans,
20 provided goals and timetables in all four areas. In some cases,
agencies did not set goals for a given area because they determined that
they were already strong in that area. All agencies with reported backlog
developed plans to reduce backlog, and (with minor exceptions) all
included both measurable goals and milestones. Except for one department,
agencies also generally set milestones for the other areas of improvement
emphasized by the Executive Order (that is, increasing public
dissemination, improving status communications, and increasing public
awareness of FOIA processing); for example, to increase public awareness,
agencies generally planned to ensure that their FOIA reference guides were
comprehensive and up to date. The exception was the Department of the
Treasury, whose review and plan was focused on backlog reduction and
omitted the other three areas of improvement; if the department does not
review these areas and, as appropriate, establish and report on goals and
timetables for them, it will not have assurance that it has taken
appropriate steps to address increasing public dissemination, improving
status communications, and increasing public awareness of FOIA processing.
We suggest that the Congress consider improving the usefulness of the
agency annual FOIA reports by requiring agencies to report statistics in
addition to processing times, including averages. In addition, we are
recommending that Justice provide aggregated statistics and summaries of
the annual reports. Finally, we are making recommendations to the
Departments of Agriculture and the Treasury aimed at improving annual FOIA
reports and agency improvement plans.
We provided drafts of our report for comment to OMB and all 25 agencies
reviewed. All the agencies generally agreed with our findings and
recommendations or had no comment, except for the Department of the
Treasury; Treasury partially disagreed with our assessment and conclusions
regarding its improvement plan and disagreed with our recommendation.
Written comments from the Departments of Agriculture, Justice, the
Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, along with the Agency for International
Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Science
Foundation, are provided in appendixes II through VIII; other comments
were provided orally. In addition, six agencies (OMB, the Office of
Personnel Management, and SSA, and the Departments of the Interior,
Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development) provided technical
comments, which we incorporated as appropriate.
More specifically:
oThe Department of Justice concurred with our assessment and
recommendation and described plans to implement the recommendation.
oThe Department of Agriculture provided additional information on actions
to improve FOIA processing and to ensure that data from the Farm Service
Agency are reliable.
oExcept for Treasury, other agencies providing written comments generally
provided additional information on their FOIA programs or provided
suggestions on the draft.
oIn written and e-mail comments, the Department of the Treasury stated
that it will be evaluating its improvement plan and taking action to
improve its FOIA administration. It indicated a general agreement with the
conclusion that Treasury's plan needs to more thoroughly integrate the
Executive Order, and noted that the plan is a living, dynamic document
that will accommodate changing circumstances. However, the department
partially disagreed with our assessment of its improvement plan,
indicating that we did not take into sufficient consideration activities
that it had been carrying out before the issuance of the Executive Order
(such as improvements to automation). Further, it disagreed with our
recommendation that it review its FOIA operations in certain areas
emphasized by the Executive Order and modify the plan as appropriate to
address these areas. The department considered that its plan's emphasis on
backlog reduction was in accordance with the emphasis placed on it by the
Executive Order and Justice guidance, that its plan went well beyond
discussing backlog reduction, and that actions that were not included in
the plan implemented other elements in the letter and spirit of the
Executive Order.
Although we agree that the Executive Order and Justice guidance placed
great emphasis on backlog reduction, we do not agree that the plan and the
other actions described fully address all the areas emphasized in the
order. For example, although the improvements to automation described by
the department may contribute to (for example) improved communication with
requesters, without goals and milestones tying these automation
improvements to that objective, neither Treasury management nor the public
will be well placed to judge whether the department has succeeded in
achieving the objective. We note, however, that Treasury in its comments
indicates that it does plan to continue to reevaluate its improvement plan
and modify it to accommodate changing circumstances. If future
modifications specifically address external communications, particularly
with requesters, the goal of our recommendation may be achieved.
Background
FOIA establishes a legal right of access to government records and
information, on the basis of the principles of openness and accountability
in government. Before the act (originally enacted in 1966), an individual
seeking access to federal records had faced the burden of establishing a
right to examine them. FOIA established a "right to know" standard for
access, instead of a "need to know," and shifted the burden of proof from
the individual to the government agency seeking to deny access.
FOIA provides the public with access to government information either
through "affirmative agency disclosure"--publishing information in the
Federal Register or on the Internet, or making it available in reading
rooms--or in response to public requests for disclosure. Public requests
for disclosure of records are the best known type of FOIA disclosure. Any
member of the public may request access to information held by federal
agencies, without showing a need or reason for seeking the information.
Not all information held by the government is subject to FOIA. The act
prescribes nine specific categories of information that are exempt from
disclosure: for example, trade secrets and certain privileged commercial
or financial information, certain personnel and medical files, and certain
law enforcement records or information (app. IX provides the complete
list). In denying access to material, agencies may cite these exemptions.
The act requires agencies to notify requesters of the reasons for any
adverse determination (that is, a determination not to provide records)
and grants requesters the right to appeal agency decisions to deny access.
In addition, agencies are required to meet certain time frames for making
key determinations: whether to comply with requests (20 business days from
receipt of the request), responses to appeals of adverse determinations
(20 business days from filing of the appeal), and whether to provide
expedited processing of requests (10 calendar days from receipt of the
request). The Congress did not establish a statutory deadline for making
releasable records available, but instead required agencies to make them
available promptly.
The FOIA Process at Federal Agencies
Although the specific details of processes for handling FOIA requests vary
among agencies, the major steps in handling a request are similar across
the government. Agencies receive requests, usually in writing (although
they may accept requests by telephone or electronically), which can come
from any organization or member of the public. Once received, the request
goes through several phases, which include initial processing, searching
for and retrieving responsive records, preparing responsive records for
release, approving the release of the records, and releasing the records
to the requester. Figure 1 is an overview of the process, from the receipt
of a request to the release of records.
Figure 1: Overview of Generic FOIA Process
During the initial processing phase, a request is logged into the agency's
FOIA system, and a case file is started. The request is then reviewed to
determine its scope, estimate fees, and provide an initial response to the
requester (in general, this simply acknowledges receipt of the request).
After this point, the FOIA staff begins its search to retrieve responsive
records. This step may include searching for records from multiple
locations and program offices. After potentially responsive records are
located, the documents are reviewed to ensure that they are within the
scope of the request.
During the next two phases, the agency ensures that appropriate
information is to be released under the provisions of the act. First, the
agency reviews the responsive records to make any redactions based on the
statutory exemptions. Once the exemption review is complete, the final set
of responsive records is turned over to the FOIA office, which calculates
appropriate fees, if applicable. Before release, the redacted responsive
records are then given a final review, possibly by the agency's general
counsel, and then a response letter is generated, summarizing the agency's
actions regarding the request. Finally, the responsive records are
released to the requester.
Some requests are relatively simple to process, such as requests for
specific pieces of information that the requester sends directly to the
appropriate office. Other requests may require more extensive processing,
depending on their complexity, the volume of information involved, the
need for the agency FOIA office to work with offices that have relevant
subject-matter expertise to find and obtain information, the need for a
FOIA officer to review and redact information in the responsive material,
the need to communicate with the requester about the scope of the request,
and the need to communicate with the requester about the fees that will be
charged for fulfilling the request (or whether fees will be waived).^15
Specific details of agency processes for handling requests vary, depending
on the agency's organizational structure and the complexity of the
requests received. While some agencies centralize processing in one main
office, other agencies have separate FOIA offices for each agency
component and field office. Agencies also vary in how they allow requests
to be made. Depending on the agency, requesters can submit requests by
telephone, fax, letter, or e-mail or through the Web. In addition,
agencies may process requests in two ways, known as "multitrack" and
"single track." Multitrack processing involves dividing requests into two
groups: (1) simple requests requiring relatively minimal review, which are
placed in one processing track, and (2) more voluminous and complex
requests, which are placed in another track. In contrast, single-track
processing does not distinguish between simple and complex requests. With
single-track processing, agencies process all requests on a
first-in/first-out basis. Agencies can also process FOIA requests on an
expedited basis when a requester has shown a compelling need or urgency
for the information.
As agencies process FOIA requests, they generally place them in one of
four possible disposition categories: grants, partial grants, denials, and
"not disclosed for other reasons." These categories are defined as
follows:
oGrants: Agency decisions to disclose all requested records in full.
oPartial grants: Agency decisions to withhold some records in whole or in
part, because such information was determined to fall within one or more
exemptions.
oDenials: Agency decisions not to release any part of the requested
records because all information in the records is determined to be exempt
under one or more statutory exemptions.
oNot disclosed for other reasons: Agency decisions not to release
requested information for any of a variety of reasons other than statutory
exemptions from disclosing records. The categories and definitions of
these "other" reasons for nondisclosure are shown in table 1.
Table 1: "Other" Reasons for Nondisclosure
Category Definition
No records The agency searched and found no record
responsive to the request.
Referrals The agency referred records responsive to the
request to another agency.
Request withdrawn The requester withdrew the request.
Fee-related reasons The requester refused to commit to pay fees (or
other reasons related to fees).
Records not reasonably The requester did not describe the records
described sought with sufficient specificity to allow them
to be located with a reasonable amount of
effort.
Not a proper FOIA request The request was not a FOIA request for one of
several procedural reasons.
Not an agency record The requested record was not within the agency's
control.
Duplicate request The request was submitted more than once by the
same requester.
Source: Department of Justice.
When a FOIA request is denied in full or in part, or the requested records
are not disclosed for other reasons, the requester is entitled to be told
the reason for the denial, to appeal the denial, and to challenge it in
court.
The Privacy Act Also Provides Individuals with Access Rights
In addition to FOIA, the Privacy Act of 1974^16 includes provisions
granting individuals the right to gain access to and correct information
about themselves held by federal agencies. Thus the Privacy Act serves as
a second major legal basis, in addition to FOIA, for the public to use in
obtaining government information. The Privacy Act also places limitations
on agencies' collection, disclosure, and use of personal information.
Although the two laws differ in scope, procedures in both FOIA and the
Privacy Act permit individuals to seek access to records about
themselves--known as "first-party" access. Depending on the individual
circumstances, one law may allow broader access or more extensive
procedural rights than the other, or access may be denied under one act
and allowed under the other. Consequently, the Department of Justice's
Office of Information and Privacy issued guidance that it is "good policy
for agencies to treat all first-party access requests as FOIA requests (as
well as possibly Privacy Act requests), regardless of whether the FOIA is
cited in a requester's letter." This guidance was intended to help ensure
that requesters receive the fullest possible response to their inquiries,
regardless of which law they cite.
In addition, Justice guidance for the annual FOIA report directs agencies
to include Privacy Act requests (that is, first-party requests) in the
statistics reported. According to the guidance, "A Privacy Act request is
a request for records concerning oneself; such requests are also treated
as FOIA requests. (All requests for access to records, regardless of which
law is cited by the requester, are included in this report.)"
Although FOIA and the Privacy Act can both apply to first-party requests,
these may not always be processed in the same way as described earlier for
FOIA requests. In some cases, little review and redaction (see fig. 1) is
required, such as, for example, a request for one's own Social Security
benefits records. In contrast, various degrees of review and redaction
could be required for other types of first-party requests: for example,
files on security background checks would need review and redaction before
being provided to the person who was the subject of the investigation.
Roles of OMB and Justice in FOIA Implementation
OMB and the Department of Justice both have roles in the implementation of
FOIA. Under various statutes, including the Paperwork Reduction Act,^17
OMB exercises broad authority for coordinating and administering various
aspects of governmentwide information policy. FOIA specifically requires
OMB to issue guidelines to "provide for a uniform schedule of fees for all
agencies."^18 OMB issued this guidance in April 1987.^19
The Department of Justice oversees agencies' compliance with FOIA and is
the primary source of policy guidance for agencies. Specifically,
Justice's requirements under the act are to
omake agencies' annual FOIA reports available through a single electronic
access point and notify the Congress as to their availability;
oin consultation with OMB, develop guidelines for the required annual
agency reports, so that all reports use common terminology and follow a
similar format; and
osubmit an annual report on FOIA litigation and the efforts undertaken by
Justice to encourage agency compliance.
Within the Department of Justice, the Office of Information and Privacy
has lead responsibility for providing guidance and support to federal
agencies on FOIA issues. This office first issued guidelines for agency
preparation and submission of annual reports in the spring of 1997. It
also periodically issues additional guidance on annual reports as well as
on compliance, provides training, and maintains a counselors service to
provide expert, one-on-one assistance to agency FOIA staff. Further, the
Office of Information and Privacy also makes a variety of FOIA and Privacy
Act resources available to agencies and the public via the Justice Web
site and on-line bulletins (available at [64]w
ww.usdoj.gov/oip/index.html).
Annual FOIA Reports Were Established by 1996 Amendments
In 1996, the Congress amended FOIA to provide for public access to
information in an electronic format (among other purposes). These
amendments, referred to as e-FOIA, also required that agencies submit a
report to the Attorney General on or before February 1 of each year that
covers the preceding fiscal year and includes information about agencies'
FOIA operations.^20 The following are examples of information that is to
be included in these reports:
onumber of requests received, processed, and pending;
omedian number of days taken by the agency to process different types of
requests;
odeterminations made by the agency not to disclose information and the
reasons for not disclosing the information;
odisposition of administrative appeals by requesters;
oinformation on the costs associated with handling of FOIA requests; and
ofull-time-equivalent staffing information.
In addition to providing their annual reports to the Attorney General,
agencies are to make them available to the public in electronic form. The
Attorney General is required to make all agency reports available online
at a single electronic access point and report to the Congress no later
than April 1 of each year that these reports are available in electronic
form. (This electronic access point is [65]w ww.usdoj.gov/oip/04_6.html.)
In 2001, in response to a congressional request, we prepared the first in
a series of reports on the implementation of the 1996 amendments to FOIA,
starting from fiscal year 1999.^21 In these reviews, we examined the
contents of the annual reports for 25 major agencies (shown in table
2).^22 They include the 24 major agencies covered by the Chief Financial
Officers Act, as well as the Central Intelligence Agency and, until 2003,
the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In 2003, the creation of
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which incorporated FEMA, led to
a shift in some FOIA requests from agencies affected by the creation of
the new department, but the same major component entities are reflected in
all the years reviewed.
Table 2: Agencies Reviewed
Agency Abbreviation
Agency for International Development AID
Central Intelligence Agency CIA
Department of Agriculture ^a USDA
Department of Commerce DOC
Department of Defense DOD
Department of Education ED
Department of Energy DOE
Department of Health and Human Services HHS
Department of Homeland Security ^b DHS
Federal Emergency Management Agency ^b FEMA
Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD
Department of Interior DOI
Department of Justice DOJ
Department of Labor DOL
Department of State State
Department of the Treasury Treas
Department of Transportation DOT
Department of Veterans Affairs VA
Environmental Protection Agency EPA
General Services Administration GSA
National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA
National Science Foundation NSF
Nuclear Regulatory Commission NRC
Office of Personnel Management OPM
Small Business Administration SBA
Social Security Administration SSA
Source: GAO.
^aUSDA was not included in our statistical analysis for this report
because data from one of its major components were found to be unreliable.
^bFEMA information was reported separately in fiscal year 2002. In fiscal
years 2003, 2004, and 2005, FEMA was part of DHS.
Our previous reports included descriptions of the status of reported FOIA
implementation, including any trends revealed by comparison with earlier
years. We noted general increases in requests received and processed, as
well as growing numbers of pending requests carried over from year to
year.
In addition, our 2001 report disclosed that data quality issues limited
the usefulness of agencies' annual FOIA reports and that agencies had not
provided online access to all the information required by the act as
amended in 1996. We therefore recommended that the Attorney General direct
the Department of Justice to improve the reliability of data in the
agencies' annual reports by providing guidance addressing the data quality
issues we identified and by reviewing agencies' report data for
completeness and consistency. We further recommended that the Attorney
General direct the department to enhance the public's access to government
records and information by encouraging agencies to make all required
materials available electronically. In response, the Department of Justice
issued supplemental guidance, addressed reporting requirements in its
training programs, and continued reviewing agencies' annual reports for
data quality. Justice also worked with agencies to improve the quality of
data in FOIA annual reports.
Executive Order Required Agencies to Take Several Actions to Improve FOIA
Operations
On December 14, 2005, the President issued an Executive Order setting
forth a policy of citizen-centered and results-oriented FOIA
administration.^23 Briefly, FOIA requesters are to receive courteous and
appropriate services, including ways to learn about the status of their
requests and the agency's response, and agencies are to provide ways for
requesters and the public to learn about the FOIA process and publicly
available agency records (such as those on Web sites). In addition, agency
FOIA operations are to be results oriented: agencies are to process
requests efficiently, achieve measurable improvements in FOIA processing,
and reform programs that do not produce appropriate results.
To carry out this policy, the order required, among other things, that
agency heads designate Chief FOIA Officers to oversee their FOIA programs,
and that agencies establish Requester Service Centers and Public Liaisons
to ensure appropriate communication with requesters. The Chief FOIA
Officers were directed to conduct reviews of the agencies' FOIA operations
and develop improvement plans to ensure that FOIA administration was in
accordance with applicable law as well as with the policy set forth in the
order. By June 2006, agencies were to submit reports that included the
results of their reviews and copies of their improvement plans. The order
also instructed the Attorney General to issue guidance on implementation
of the order's requirements for agencies to conduct reviews and develop
plans. Finally, the order instructed agencies to report on their progress
in implementing their plans and meeting milestones as part of their annual
reports for fiscal years 2006 and 2007, and required agencies to account
for any milestones missed.
In April 2006, the Department of Justice posted guidance on implementation
of the order's requirements for FOIA reviews and improvement plans.^24
This guidance suggested a number of areas of FOIA administration that
agencies might consider in conducting their reviews and developing
improvement plans. (Examples of some of these areas are automated tracking
capabilities, automated processing, receiving/responding to requests
electronically, forms of communication with requesters, and systems for
handling referrals to other agencies.) To encourage consistency, the
guidance also included a template for agencies to use to structure the
plans and to report on their reviews and plans.^25 The improvement plans
are posted on the Justice Web site at [66]w
ww.usdoj.gov/oip/agency_improvement.html.
In a July 2006 testimony, we provided preliminary results of our analyses
of the improvement plans for the 25 agencies in our review that were
submitted as of the end of June; in our testimony we focused on how the
plans addressed reducing or eliminating backlog.^26 We testified that a
substantial number of plans did not include measurable goals and
timetables that would allow agencies to measure and evaluate the success
of their plans. Several of the plans were revised in light of our
testimony, as well as in response to feedback to agencies from the
Department of Justice in its FOIA oversight role.
Status of FOIA Processing Appears Similar to Previous Years, but
Limitations in Annual Report Data Present Challenges
The data reported by 24 major agencies in annual FOIA reports from 2002 to
2005 reveal a number of general trends. (Data from USDA, which were
reported in our July 2006 testimony, are omitted in what follows, because
we determined that data from a major USDA component were not reliable.)
For example, the public continued to submit more requests for information
from the federal government through FOIA, but many agencies, despite
increasing the numbers of requests processed, did not keep pace with this
increased volume. As a result, the number of pending requests carried over
from year to year has been steadily increasing. However, our ability to
make generalizations about processing time is limited by the type of
statistic reported (that is, the median). Taking steps to improve the
accuracy and form of annual report data could provide more insight into
FOIA processing.
Not All Data from USDA's Farm Service Agency Are Reliable, but Its
Improvement Plan Provides Opportunity to Address This Weakness
We omitted data from USDA's annual FOIA report because we determined that
not all these data were reliable. Although some USDA components expressed
confidence in their data, one component, the Farm Service Agency, did not.
According to this agency's FOIA Officer, portions of the agency's data in
annual reports were not accurate or complete. This is a significant
deficiency, because the Farm Service Agency reportedly processes over 80
percent of the department's total FOIA requests. Currently, FOIA
processing for the Farm Service Agency is highly decentralized, taking
place in staff offices in Washington, D.C., and Kansas City, 50 state
offices, and about 2,350 county offices. The agency FOIA officer told us
that she questioned the completeness and accuracy of data supplied by the
county offices. This official stated that some of the field office data
supplied for the annual report were clearly wrong, leading her to question
the systems used to record workload data at field offices and the field
office staff's understanding of FOIA requirements. She attributed this
condition to the agency's decentralized organization and to lack of
management attention, resources, and training. Lacking accurate data
hinders the Farm Service Agency from effectively monitoring and managing
its FOIA program.
The Executive Order's requirement to develop an improvement plan provides
an opportunity for the Farm Service Agency to address its data reliability
problems. More specifically, Justice's guidance on implementing the
Executive Order refers to the need for agencies to explore improvements in
their monitoring and tracking systems and staff training. USDA has
developed an improvement plan that includes activities to improve FOIA
processing at the Farm Service Agency that are relevant to the issues
raised by the Farm Service Agency's FOIA Officer, including both
automation and training. The plan sets goals for ensuring that all agency
employees who process or retrieve responsive records are trained in the
necessary FOIA duties, as well as for determining the type of automated
tracking to be implemented. According to the plan, an electronic tracking
system is needed to track requests, handle public inquiries regarding
request status, and prepare a more accurate annual FOIA report. In
addition, the Farm Service Agency plans to determine the benefit of
increased centralization of FOIA request processing.
However, the plan does not directly address improvements to data
reliability. If USDA does not also plan for activities, measures, and
milestones to improve data reliability, it increases the risk that the
Farm Service Agency will not produce reliable FOIA statistics, which are
important for program oversight and meeting the act's goal of providing
visibility into government FOIA operations.
Except for SSA, Increases in Requests Received and Processed Are Generally
Slowing
The numbers of FOIA requests received and processed continue to rise, but
except for one case--SSA--the rate of increase has flattened in recent
years. For SSA, we present statistics separately because the agency
reported an additional 16 million requests in 2005, dwarfing those for all
other agencies combined, which together total about 2.6 million. SSA
attributed this rise to an improvement in its method of counting requests
and stated that in previous years, these requests were undercounted.
Further, all but about 38,000 of SSA's over 17 million requests are simple
requests for personal information by or on behalf of individuals.
Figure 2 shows total requests reported governmentwide for fiscal years
2002 through 2005, with SSA's share shown separately.^27 This figure shows
the magnitude of SSA's contribution to the whole FOIA picture, as well as
the scale of the jump from 2004 to 2005.
Figure 2: Total FOIA Requests with SSA Shown Separately, Fiscal Years
2002-2005
Figure 3 presents statistics omitting SSA on a scale that allows a clearer
view of the rate of increase in FOIA requests received and processed in
the rest of the government. As this figure shows, when SSA's numbers are
excluded, the rate of increase is modest and has been flattening: For the
whole period (fiscal years 2002 to 2005), requests received increased by
about 29 percent, and requests processed increased by about 27 percent.
Most of this rise occurred from fiscal years 2002 to 2003: about 28
percent for requests received, and about 27 percent for requests
processed. In contrast, from fiscal year 2004 to 2005, the rise was much
less: about 3 percent for requests received, and about 2 percent for
requests processed.
Figure 3: Total FOIA Requests and FOIA Requests Processed, Omitting SSA,
Fiscal Years 2002-2005
According to SSA, the increases that the agency reported in fiscal year
2005 can be attributed to an improvement in its method of counting a
category of requests it calls "simple requests handled by non-FOIA staff."
From fiscal year 2002 to 2005, SSA's FOIA reports have consistently shown
significant growth in this category, which has accounted for the major
portion of all SSA requests reported (see table 3). In each of these
years, SSA has attributed the increases in this category largely to better
reporting, as well as actual increases in requests.
Table 3: Comparison of SSA's Simple Requests Handled by Non-FOIA Staff to
Totals, Fiscal Years 2002 to 2005
Fiscal Total requests Total requests Simple requests Percentage of
year received processed handled by non-FOIA total processed
staff
2005 17,257,886 17,262,315 17,223,713 99.8
2004 1,453,619 1,450,493 1,270,512 87.6
2003 705,280 704,941 678,849 96.3
2002 268,488 292,884 245,877 84.0
Sources: SSA FOIA reports (self-reported data), GAO analysis.
SSA describes requests in this category as typically being requests by
individuals for access to their own records, as well as requests in which
individuals consent for SSA to supply information about themselves to
third parties (such as insurance and mortgage companies) so that they can
receive housing assistance, mortgages, disability insurance, and so on.^28
According to SSA's FOIA report, these requests are handled by personnel in
about 1,500 locations in SSA, including field and district offices and
teleservice centers.^29 Such requests are almost always granted,^30
according to SSA, and most receive immediate responses. SSA has stated
that it does not keep processing statistics (such as median days to
process) on these requests, which it reports separately from other FOIA
requests (for which processing statistics are kept). However, officials
say that these are typically processed in a day or less.
According to SSA officials, they included information on these requests in
their annual reports because Justice guidance instructs agencies to treat
Privacy Act requests (requests for records concerning oneself) as FOIA
requests and report them in their annual reports.^31 In addition, SSA
officials said that their automated systems make it straightforward to
capture and report on these simple requests. According to SSA, in fiscal
year 2005, the agency began to use automated systems to capture the
numbers of requests processed by non-FOIA staff, generating statistics
automatically as requests were processed; the result, according to SSA, is
a much more accurate count.
Besides SSA, agencies reporting large numbers of requests received were
the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security,
Justice, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, as shown in table 4.^32 The
rest of the agencies combined account for only about 5 percent of the
total requests received (if SSA's simple requests handled by non-FOIA
staff are excluded). Table 4 presents, in descending order of request
totals, the numbers of requests received and percentages of the total
(calculated with and without SSA's statistics on simple requests handled
by non-FOIA staff).
Table 4: Requests Received, Fiscal Year 2005
Agency Total requests Percentage of Percentage of
received total including total including
SSA line 1 SSA line 2
SSA (all) 17,257,886 87.00 --
SSA (excluding simple 38,602 -- 1.48
requests handled by
non-FOIA staff)
VA 1,914,395 9.65 73.17
HHS 222,372 1.12 8.50
DHS 163,016 0.82 6.23
DOD 81,304 0.41 3.11
Treas 53,330 0.27 2.04
DOJ 52,010 0.26 1.99
DOL 23,505 0.12 0.90
EPA 12,201 0.06 0.47
OPM 12,085 0.06 0.46
DOT 9,597 0.05 0.37
DOI 6,749 0.03 0.26
State 4,602 0.02 0.18
HUD 4,227 0.02 0.16
SBA 3,739 0.02 0.14
DOE 3,729 0.02 0.14
CIA 2,935 0.01 0.11
ED 2,416 0.01 0.09
DOC 1,804 0.01 0.07
GSA 1,416 0.01 0.05
NASA 1,229 0.01 0.05
NRC 371 0.00 0.01
AID 369 0.00 0.01
NSF 273 0.00 0.01
Total including SSA line 1 19,835,560 -- --
Total including SSA line 2 2,616,276 -- --
Source: FOIA annual reports for 2005 (self-reported data).
Note: Abbreviations are as in table 2. USDA data have been omitted, as
data from a major USDA component were determined to be unreliable.
Most Requests Are Granted in Full
Most FOIA requests in 2005 were granted in full, with relatively few being
partially granted, denied, or not disclosed for other reasons (statistics
are shown in table 5). This generalization holds with or without SSA's
inclusion. The percentage of requests granted in full was about 87
percent, which is about the same as in previous years. However, if SSA's
numbers are included, the proportion of grants dominates the other
categories--raising this number from 87 percent of the total to 98
percent. This is to be expected, since SSA reports that it grants the
great majority of its simple requests handled by non-FOIA staff, which
make up the bulk of SSA's statistics.
Table 5: Disposition of Processed Requests for Fiscal Year 2005
Statistics Statistics
excluding including
SSA^a SSA
Disposition Number Percentage Number Percentage
Full grants 2,206,515 87.1 19,466,907 98.3
Partial grants 102,079 4.0 102,354 0.5
Denial 19,864 0.8 20,318 0.1
Not disclosed for 204,491 8.1 205,685 1.0
other reasons
Total 2,532,949 19,795,264
Source: FOIA annual reports for 2005 (self-reported data).
Note: USDA data have been omitted, as data from a major USDA component
were determined to be unreliable. Percentages do not add up to 100 percent
because of rounding.
^a We exclude all SSA statistics for this comparison rather than omitting
only simple requests handled by non-FOIA staff, because SSA's report does
not break out this category in its statistics on disposition.
Three of the seven agencies that handled the largest numbers of requests
(HHS, SSA, and VA; see table 4) also granted the largest percentages of
requests in full, as shown in figure 4. Figure 4 shows, by agency, the
disposition of requests processed: that is, whether granted in full,
partially granted, denied, or "not disclosed for other reasons" (see table
1 for a list of these reasons).
Figure 4: Disposition of Processed Requests, by Agency (Fiscal Year 2005)
Note: Abbreviations are shown in table 2. USDA data have been omitted, as
data from a major USDA component were determined to be unreliable.
As the figure shows, the numbers of fully granted requests varied widely
among agencies in fiscal year 2005. Six agencies made full grants of
requested records in over 80 percent of the cases they processed (besides
the three already mentioned, these include Energy, OPM, and SBA). In
contrast, 13 of 24 made full grants of requested records in less than 40
percent of their cases, including 3 agencies (CIA, NSF, and State) that
made full grants in less than 20 percent of cases processed.
This variance among agencies in the disposition of requests has been
evident in prior years as well.^33 In many cases, the variance can be
accounted for by the types of requests that different agencies process.
For example, as discussed earlier, SSA grants a very high proportion of
requests because they are requests for personal information about
individuals that are routinely made available to or for the individuals
concerned. Similarly, VA routinely makes medical records available to
individual veterans, and HHS also handles large numbers of Privacy Act
requests. Such requests are generally granted in full. Other agencies, on
the other hand, receive numerous requests whose responses must routinely
be redacted. For example, NSF reported in its annual report that most of
its requests (an estimated 90 percent) are for copies of funded grant
proposals. The responsive documents are routinely redacted to remove
personal information on individual principal investigators (such as
salaries, home addresses, and so on), which results in high numbers of
"partial grants" compared to "full grants."
Processing Times Vary, but Broad Generalizations Are Limited
For 2005, the reported time required to process requests (by track) varied
considerably among agencies. Table 6 presents data on median processing
times for fiscal year 2005. For agencies that reported processing times by
component rather than for the agency as a whole, the table indicates the
range of median times reported by the agency's components.
Table 6: Median Days to Process Requests for Fiscal Year 2005, by Track
Type of request processing track
Agency Simple Complex Single Expedited
AID -- -- 55 34
CIA 7 68 -- --
DHS 16-61 3-242 -- 2-45
DOC 12 40 -- 8
DOD 16 85 -- --
DOE 5-106 10-170 -- 1-12
DOI 2-43 28-89 -- 1-15
DOJ 0-139 12-863 -- 2-185
DOL 6-30 14-60 -- 2-18
DOT 1-30 20-134 -- 5-30
ED 35 66 -- 24
EPA 13-32 4-166 -- 8-109
GSA -- 14 -- --
HHS 10-26 60-370 5-173 14-158
HUD 21-65 35-160 -- 9-70
NASA 19 49 -- 15
NRC 12 75 -- 20
NSF -- -- 14 --
OPM -- -- 14 1
SBA -- -- 7 --
SSA 15 39 10 17
State 14 142 -- 136
Treas 2-86 3-251 -- 1
VA -- 1-60 -- 1-10
Source: FOIA annual reports for fiscal year 2005 (self-reported data).
Note: For agencies that reported processing times by component, the table
indicates the range of reported component median times. A dash indicates
that the agency did not report any median time for a given track in a
given year. USDA data have been omitted, as data from a major USDA
component were determined to be unreliable.
As the table shows, seven agencies had components that reported processing
simple requests in less than 10 days (these components are parts of the
CIA, Energy, the Interior, Justice, Labor, Transportation, and the
Treasury); for each of these agencies, the lower value of the reported
ranges is less than 10. On the other hand, median time to process simple
requests is relatively long at some organizations (for example, components
of Energy and Justice, as shown by median ranges whose upper end values
are greater than 100 days).
For complex requests, the picture is similarly mixed. Components of four
agencies (EPA, DHS, the Treasury, and VA) reported processing complex
requests quickly--with a median of less than 10 days. In contrast, other
components of several agencies (DHS, Energy, EPA, HHS, HUD, Justice,
State, Transportation, and the Treasury) reported relatively long median
times to process complex requests, with median days greater than 100.
Six agencies (AID, HHS, NSF, OPM, SBA, and SSA) reported using
single-track processing. The median processing times for single-track
processing varied from 5 days (at an HHS component) to 173 days (at
another HHS component).
The changes from fiscal year 2004 to 2005 also vary. For agencies that
reported agencywide figures, table 7 shows how many showed increased or
decreased median processing times. Table 8 shows these numbers for the
components that were reported separately.
Table 7: Changes in Median Processing Times Reported by Agencies for
Different Processing Tracks
Agencies Agencies Agencies
with with with
increased decreased unchanged
median median median
times times times
Processing Number of Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent
track agencies
using
this
track
Simple 7 3 42.9 3 42.9 1 14.3
Complex 8 5 62.5 2 25.0 1 12.5
Single 5 3 60.0 2 40.0 0 0.0
Expedited 5 2 40.0 3 60.0 0 0.0
Sources: Annual FOIA reports, GAO analysis.
Table 8: Changes in Median Processing Times Reported by Components for
Different Processing Tracks
Processing Number of Components Components Components
track components with with with
using this increased decreased unchanged
track median median median
times times times
Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent
Simple 107 48 44.9 41 38.3 18 16.8
Complex 94 49 52.1 39 41.5 6 6.4
Single 9 3 33.3 2 22.2 4 44.4
Expedited 38 22 57.9 11 28.9 5 13.2
Sources: Annual FOIA reports, GAO analysis.
Note: A total of 204 components are listed in the FOIA reports. Not all
the components processed requests or used all the tracks.
In general, these tables show that no trend emerges across tracks and
types of reporting, and the numbers of agencies and components involved
vary from track to track. The picture that emerges is of great variation
in processing times according to circumstances.
To allow more insight into the variations in median processing times, we
provide in appendix X tables of median processing times as reported by
agencies and components in the annual FOIA reports in fiscal years 2004
and 2005. This attachment also includes information on the number of
requests reported by the agencies and components, which provides context
for assessing the median times reported.
Our ability to make further generalizations about FOIA processing times is
limited by the fact that, as required by the act, agencies report median
processing times only and not, for example, arithmetic means (the usual
meaning of "average" in everyday language). To find an arithmetic mean,
one adds all the members of a list of numbers and divides the result by
the number of items in the list. To find the median, one arranges all the
values in the list from lowest to highest and finds the middle one (or the
average of the middle two if there is no one middle number). Thus,
although using medians provides representative numbers that are not skewed
by a few outliers, they cannot be summed. Deriving a median for two sets
of numbers, for example, requires knowing all numbers in both sets. Only
the source data for the medians can be used to derive a new median, not
the medians themselves.
As a result, with only medians it is not statistically possible to combine
results from different agencies to develop broader generalizations, such
as a governmentwide statistic based on all agency reports, statistics from
sets of comparable agencies, or an agencywide statistic based on separate
reports from all components of the agency.
In rewriting the FOIA reporting requirements in 1996, legislators declared
an interest in making them "more useful to the public and to the Congress,
and [making] the information in them more accessible."^34 However, the
limitation on aggregating data imposed by the use of medians alone impedes
the development of broader pictures of FOIA operations. A more complete
picture would be given by the inclusion of other statistics based on the
same data that are used to derive medians, such as means and ranges.
Providing means along with the median would allow more generalizations to
be drawn, and providing ranges would complete the picture by adding
information on the outliers in agency statistics. More complete
information would be useful for public accountability and for effectively
managing agency FOIA programs, as well as for meeting the act's goal of
providing visibility into government FOIA operations.
Agency Pending Cases Continue to Increase
In addition to the governmentwide increase in number of requests
processed, many agencies (10 of 24) also reported that their numbers of
pending cases--requests carried over from one year to the next--have
increased since 2002.^35 In 2002, pending requests governmentwide were
reported to number about 138,000, whereas in 2005, about 200,000--45
percent more--were reported. (In addition, the rate of increase grew in
fiscal year 2005, rising 24 percent from fiscal year 2004, compared to 13
percent from 2003 to 2004.) Figure 5 shows these results, illustrating the
accelerating rate at which pending cases have been increasing.
These statistics include pending cases reported by SSA, because SSA's
pending cases do not include simple requests handled by non-FOIA staff
(for which SSA does not track pending cases). As the figure shows, these
pending cases do not change the governmentwide picture significantly.
Figure 5: Total FOIA Requests Pending at End of Year, 2002-2005
Trends for individual agencies show mixed progress in reducing the number
of pending requests reported from 2002 to 2005--some agencies have
decreased numbers of pending cases, while others' numbers have increased.
Figure 6 shows processing rates at the 24 agencies (that is, the number of
requests that an agency processes relative to the number it receives).
Eight of the 24 agencies (AID, DHS, the Interior, Education, HHS, HUD,
NSF, and OPM) reported processing fewer requests than they received each
year for fiscal years 2003, 2004, and 2005; 8 additional agencies
processed less than they received in 2 of these 3 years (Defense, Justice,
Transportation, GSA, NASA, NRC, SSA, and VA).
In contrast, two agencies (CIA and Energy) had processing rates above 100
percent in all 3 years, meaning that each made continued progress in
reducing their numbers of pending cases. Fourteen additional agencies were
able to make at least a small reduction in their numbers of pending
requests in 1 or more years between fiscal years 2003 and 2005.
Figure 6: Agency Processing Rate for 25 Agencies
Notes: Abbreviations are as in table 2.
The agency processing rate is defined as the number of requests processed
in a given year compared with the requests received, expressed as a
percentage.
In 2002, FEMA data were used, and for 2003, 2004, and 2005, DHS data were
used.
No Regular Mechanism Is in Place for Aggregating Annual Report Data
Legislators noted in 1996 that the FOIA reporting requirements were
rewritten "to make them more useful to the public and to the Congress, and
to make the information in them more accessible." The Congress also gave
the Department of Justice the responsibility to provide policy guidance
and oversee agencies' compliance with FOIA.
In its oversight and guidance role, Justice's Office of Information and
Privacy (OIP) created summaries of the annual FOIA reports and made these
available through its FOIA Post Web page (
www.usdoj.gov/oip/foiapost/mainpage.htm ). In 2003, Justice described
its summary as "a major guidance tool."^36 It pointed out that although it
was not required to do so under the law, the office had initiated the
practice of compiling aggregate summaries of all agencies' annual FOIA
report data as soon as these were filed by all agencies. These summaries
did not contain aggregated statistical tables, but they did provide prose
descriptions that included statistics on major governmentwide results.
However, the most recent of these summaries is for fiscal year 2003.^37
According to the Acting Director of OIP, she did not know why such
summaries had not been made available since then. According to this
official, internally the agency found the summaries useful and was
considering making them available again. She also stated that these
summaries gave a good overall picture of governmentwide processing.
Aggregating and summarizing the information in the annual reports serves
to maximize their usefulness and accessibility, in accordance with
congressional intent, as well as potentially providing Justice with
insight into FOIA implementation governmentwide and valuable benchmarks
for use in overseeing the FOIA program. Such information would also be
valuable for others interested in gauging governmentwide performance. The
absence of such summaries reduces the ability of the public and the
Congress to consistently obtain a governmentwide picture of FOIA
processing.
Agency Improvement Plans Generally Included Areas of Improvement
Emphasized by the Executive Order
As required by the Executive Order, all the 25 agencies submitted
improvement plans based on the results of reviews of their respective FOIA
operations, as well as on the areas emphasized by the order. The plans
generally addressed these four areas, with 20 of 25 plans addressing all
four. In particular, for all but 2 agencies with reported backlog, plans
included both measurable goals and timetables for backlog reduction.
Further, to increase reliance on dissemination, improve communications on
the status of requests, and increase public awareness of FOIA processing,
agencies generally set milestones to accomplish activities promoting these
aims. In some cases, agencies did not set goals for a given area because
they determined that they were already strong in that area.
All Agencies Addressed Reducing Backlog, and Most Set Measurable Goals and
Milestones
The Executive Order states that improvement plans shall include "specific
activities that the agency will implement to eliminate or reduce the
agency's FOIA backlog, including (as applicable) changes that will make
the processing of FOIA requests more streamlined and effective." It
further states that plans were to include "concrete milestones, with
specific timetables and outcomes to be achieved," to allow the plan's
success to be measured and evaluated. In addition, the Justice guidance
suggested a number of process improvement areas for agencies to consider,
such as receiving or responding to requests electronically, automated FOIA
processing, automated tracking capabilities, and multitrack processing. It
also gave agencies considerable leeway in choosing "means of measurement
of success" for improving timeliness and thus reducing backlog.^38
All agency plans discussed avoiding or reducing backlog, and most (22 out
of 25) established measurable goals and timetables for this area of focus.
One agency, SBA, reported that it had no backlog, so it set no goals. A
second agency, NSF, set no specific numerical goals for backlog reduction,
but it had minimal backlog (in fiscal year 2005, NSF reported 273 requests
received and 17 pending at the end of the reporting period),^39 and its
median processing time in fiscal year 2005 was 14.26 days.^40 Its plan
includes activities to increase efficiency (such as improving its ability
to process requests electronically and investigating the acquisition of an
improved automated tracking system) and to monitor and analyze backlogged
requests to determine whether systemic changes are warranted in its
processes. Given NSF's minimal backlog and other improvement activities
planned, the treatment of backlog reduction in its plan seems reasonable.
A third agency, HUD, set a measurable goal for reducing backlog, but did
not include a date by which it planned to achieve it. However, it achieved
this goal, according to agency officials, by November 2006.^41
The goals chosen by the 22 remaining agencies varied considerably (which
is consistent with the flexibility in choosing measures that Justice
provided in its implementation guidance). Some agencies linked backlog
reduction to various different measures. For example, EPA's goal was to
reduce its response backlog to less than 10 percent of the number of new
FOIA requests received each year. Energy set a goal of achieving a 50
percent reduction by June 2007 in the number of pending FOIA cases that
were over 1 year old. NRC chose to focus on improving processing times,
setting percentage goals for completion of different types of requests
(for example, completing 75 percent of simple requests within 20 days).
Labor's plan sets goals that aim for larger percentages of reduction for
the oldest categories of pending requests (75 percent reduction for the
oldest, 50 percent reduction for the next oldest, and so on). A number of
agencies included goals to close their oldest 5 to 10 requests (Justice,
the Treasury, Education, Commerce, Defense, GSA, NASA, SSA, and VA).
According to the Attorney General's report to the President, in
concentrating on their oldest requests, many agencies followed Justice's
lead.^42
OPM and DHS plan to eliminate their backlogs, Transportation is planning
to substantially reduce previous fiscal year backlogs, and several
agencies chose goals based on a percentage of reduction of existing
backlog (for example, CIA, Commerce, Education, Defense, the Interior,
Justice, SSA, the Treasury, and USDA). Some agencies also described plans
to perform analyses that would measure their backlogs so that they could
then establish the necessary baselines against which to measure progress.
For example, Labor's plan includes activities to monitor and determine the
department's oldest pending requests. The plan states that Labor will use
as its baseline the number of requests that it identifies as pending for
various lengths of time as of December 31, 2006. Similarly, Defense's plan
included activities to establish backlog levels and use these as the basis
for its objective of reducing backlog by 10 percent annually.
In addition to setting backlog targets, agencies also describe activities
that contribute to reducing backlog. For example, the Treasury plan, which
states that backlog reduction is the main challenge facing the department
and the focus of its plan, includes such activities (with associated
milestones) as reengineering its multitrack FOIA process, monitoring
monthly reports, and establishing a FOIA council.
The agency plans thus provide a variety of activities and measures of
improvement that should permit agency heads, the Congress, and the public
to assess the agencies' success in implementing their plans to reduce
backlog.
Most Agencies Plan to Increase Public Dissemination of Records through Web
Sites
The Executive Order calls for "increased reliance on the dissemination of
records that can be made available to the public" without the necessity of
a FOIA request, such as through posting on Web sites. In its guidance,
Justice notes that agencies are required by FOIA to post frequently
requested records, policy statements, staff manuals and instructions to
staff, and final agency opinions. It encourages agencies not only to
review their activities to meet this requirement, but also to make other
public information available that might reduce the need to make FOIA
requests. It also suggests that agencies consider improving FOIA Web sites
to ensure that they are user friendly and up to date.
Agency plans generally established goals and timetables for increasing
reliance on public dissemination of records, including through Web sites.
Of 25 agencies, 24 included plans to revise agency Web sites and add
information to them, and 12 of these are making additional efforts to
ensure that frequently requested documents are posted on their Web sites.
For example, Defense is planning to increase the number of its components
that have Web sites as well as posting frequently requested documents.
Interior is planning to facilitate the posting of frequently requested
documents by using scanning and redaction equipment to make electronic
versions readily available.
Agencies planned other related activities, such as making posted documents
easier to find, improving navigation, and adding other helpful
information. For example, besides reviewing its Web site to verify and add
links, AID plans to establish an "information/searching decision tree" to
assist Web site visitors by directing them to agency public affairs staff
who may be able to locate information and avoid the need for visitors to
file FOIA requests. Besides adding frequently requested documents, CIA
plans to improve navigation and review its site quarterly. HUD plans
activities to anticipate topics that may produce numerous FOIA requests
("hot button" issues) and post relevant documents. Education is planning
to use its automated tracking technology to determine when it is receiving
multiple requests for similar information and then post such information
on its Web site.^43 Based on its FOIA review, NRC determined that it would
be helpful to requesters for the agency to provide examples of the types
of information in NRC documents that might be covered by FOIA exemptions,
and it established goals to achieve this.
The Treasury plan does not address increasing public dissemination of
records. Treasury's plan, as mentioned earlier, is focused on backlog
reduction. It does not mention the other areas emphasized in the Executive
Order, list them among the areas it selected for review, or explain the
decision to omit them from the review and plan. Treasury officials told us
that they concentrated in their plan on areas where they determined the
department had a deficiency: namely, a backlog consisting of numerous
requests, some of which were very old (dating as far back as 1991). By
comparison, they did not consider they had deficiencies in the other
areas. With regard to increasing dissemination, they noted that their Web
sites currently provide frequently requested records. However, without a
careful review of the department's current dissemination practices or a
plan to take actions to increase dissemination, Treasury does not have
assurance that it has identified and exploited available opportunities to
increase dissemination of records in such a way as to reduce the need for
the public to make FOIA requests, as stressed by the Executive Order.
Most Agency Plans Included Improving Status Communications with FOIA
Requesters
The Executive Order sets as policy that agencies shall provide FOIA
requesters ways to learn about the status of their FOIA requests and
states that agency improvement plans shall ensure that FOIA administration
is in accordance with this policy. In its implementation guidance, Justice
reiterated the order's emphasis on providing status information to
requesters and discussed the need for agencies to examine, among other
things, their capabilities for tracking status and the forms of
communication used with requesters.
Most agencies (22 of 25) established goals and timetables for improving
communications with FOIA requesters about the status of their requests.
Goals set by these agencies included planned changes to communications,
including sending acknowledgement letters, standardizing letters to
requesters, including information on elements of a proper FOIA request in
response letters, and posting contact information on Web pages. Both NASA
and Interior planned to establish toll free numbers for requesters to
obtain status information. NASA also included plans to acquire software
that would allow a requester to access and track status of his or her
request. Interior planned to develop and post frequently asked questions
to provide requesters with information about where to submit their
requests, processing times, fees charged, and how to check on the status
of their requests. HUD's plan included posting information on its Web
site, providing training on customer service, and gauging progress through
public forums at which it can receive comments on improving FOIA
performance.
Three agencies did not include improvement goals because they considered
them unnecessary. In two cases (Defense and EPA), agencies considered that
status communications were already an area of strength.
Defense considered that it was strong in both customer responsiveness and
communications. Defense performed extensive surveys of the opinions and
practices of its FOIA staff and Public Liaisons^44 and concluded that
"FOIA personnel routinely contact requesters to try to resolve problems
and to better define requests." Defense's Web site provides instructions
for requesters on how to get information about the status of requests, as
well as information on Requester Service Centers and Public Liaisons.
Defense officials also told us that this information is included in
acknowledgement letters to requesters. In addition, these officials stated
that planned revisions to Defense FOIA Web sites would promote improving
status communications, and that the department is working to implement an
Interactive Customer Collection tool that would enable requesters to
provide feedback.
Similarly, EPA officials told us that they considered the agency's
activities to communicate with requesters on the status of their requests
to be already effective, noting that many of the improvements planned by
other agencies were already in effect at EPA. For example, EPA sends out
an acknowledgment letter within a day of the request that includes a
tracking number, the department that will be involved, and a contact name
and telephone number. Officials also stated that EPA holds regular FOIA
requester forums, the last held on November 1, 2006, and that EPA's
requester community had expressed satisfaction with EPA's responsiveness.
EPA's response to the Executive Order describes its efforts to communicate
with requesters, including activities of staff at its FOIA Service Center
and a FOIA hotline through which callers may receive information on the
status of their requests. It also describes the enterprise FOIA management
system, deployed in 2005, that provides "cradle to grave" tracking of
incoming requests and responses.
The third agency, Treasury, did not address improving status
communications, as its plan is entirely focused on backlog reduction. As
required by the Executive Order, Treasury did set up Requester Service
Centers and Public Liaisons, which are among the mechanisms envisioned to
improve status communications. However, because Treasury omitted status
communications from the areas of improvement that it selected for review,
it is not clear that this area received attention commensurate with the
emphasis it was given in the Executive Order. Without such attention to
communication with requesters, Treasury increases the risk that its FOIA
operations will not be as responsive and citizen centered as the Executive
Order envisioned.
Agencies Generally Plan to Rely on FOIA Reference Guides to Increase
Public Awareness of FOIA Processing
The Executive Order states that improvement plans shall include activities
to increase public awareness of FOIA processing, including (as
appropriate) expanded use of Requester Service Centers and FOIA Public
Liaisons, which agencies were required to establish by the order. In
Justice's guidance, it linked this requirement to the FOIA Reference Guide
that agencies are required to maintain as an aid to potential FOIA
requesters, because such guides can be an effective means for increasing
public awareness. Accordingly, the Justice guidance advised agencies to
double-check these guides to ensure that they remain comprehensive and up
to date.
Most agencies (23 of 25) defined goals and timetables for increasing
public awareness of FOIA processing, generally including ensuring that
FOIA reference guides were up to date. In addition, all 25 agencies
established Requester Service Centers and Public Liaisons as required by
the Executive Order. Besides these activities, certain agencies planned
other types of outreach: for example, the Department of State reported
taking steps to obtain feedback from the public on how to improve FOIA
processes; GSA plans to post information about what GSA can and cannot
release; the Department of the Interior plans to initiate feedback surveys
on requesters' FOIA experience; and the Department of Labor is planning to
hold public forums and solicit suggestions from the requester community.
Defense did not set specific goals and milestones in this area; according
to Defense, it did not do so because its FOIA handbook had already been
updated in the fall of 2005. The department also established Requester
Service Centers and Public Liaisons, as required. Department officials
told us that in meeting their goals and milestones for revising FOIA Web
sites, they expect to improve awareness of Defense's FOIA process, as well
as public access and other objectives.
As mentioned earlier, Treasury did not address this area in its review or
plan. However, Treasury has established Requester Service Centers and FOIA
Public Liaisons, as required. Treasury's Director of Disclosure
Services^45 also told us that Treasury provides on its Web site a FOIA
handbook, a Privacy Act handbook, and a citizen's guide for requesters. In
addition, this official told us that Treasury had updated its FOIA
handbook in 2005 and conducted staff training based on the update.
However, at the time of our review, the FOIA handbook on the Web site was
a version dated January 2000. When we pointed out that this earlier
version was posted, the official indicated that he would arrange for the
most recent version to be posted.
Because Treasury did not review its efforts to increase public awareness,
it missed an opportunity to discover that the handbook on the Web site was
outdated and thus might not provide assurance to the public that the
information provided was fully up to date, reducing its effectiveness as a
communication tool. Without further attention to increasing public
awareness, Treasury lacks assurance that it has taken all appropriate
steps to ensure that the public has the means of understanding the
agency's FOIA processing.
Conclusions
The annual FOIA reports continue to provide valuable information about
citizens' use of this important tool to obtain information about the
operation and decisions of the federal government. The value of this
information clearly depends, however, on its accuracy. In the case of the
USDA's Farm Service Agency, which is not assured of the accuracy of its
data, the department's FOIA improvement plan is an opportunity to address
data reliability along with other processing improvements. In addition,
one value of the annual reports lies in the possibility they provide of
seeing trends and drawing generalizations. However, our ability to
generalize about processing times, whether from agency to agency or year
to year, is limited because only median times are reported. Since
processing times are an important gauge of government responsiveness to
citizen inquiries, this limitation is significant. Medians are useful as
representative numbers that are not skewed by a few outliers, but the
addition of averages (arithmetic means) and ranges would enhance the
ability to make useful comparisons and provide a more complete picture.
Finally, in the absence of aggregated statistics and summaries, as
formerly provided by the Justice Department, it is difficult to obtain a
governmentwide picture of FOIA processing. Providing such statistics and
summaries could increase the value of the annual reporting process for
assessing the performance of the FOIA program as a whole.
The Executive Order provided a useful impetus for agencies to review their
FOIA operations and ensure that they are appropriately responsive to the
public generally and requesters specifically. The 25 agencies submitted
FOIA improvement plans that generally responded to elements emphasized by
the Executive Order and form a reasonable basis for carrying out the
order's goals. In general, all the plans show a commendable focus on
making measurable improvements. One agency (Treasury) submitted a plan
that could be improved by closer adherence to the other elements, besides
backlog, specified by the Executive Order.
Implementing the improvement plans and reporting on their progress should
serve to keep management attention on FOIA and its role in keeping
citizens well informed about the operations of their government. However,
to realize the goals of the Executive Order, it will be important for
Justice and the agencies to continue to refine the improvement plans and
monitor progress in their implementation.
Matters for Congressional Consideration
To improve the usefulness of the statistics in agency annual FOIA reports,
the Congress should consider amending the act to require agencies to
report additional statistics on processing time, which at a minimum should
include average times and ranges.
Recommendations for Executive Action
To provide a clearer picture of FOIA processing both in a given year and
over time, we recommend that the Attorney General direct Justice's Office
of Information and Privacy to use data from annual reports to develop
summaries and aggregate statistics (as appropriate) for categories of
agencies (such as major departments), as well as governmentwide.
To ensure that USDA data in FOIA annual reports are accurate and complete,
we recommend that the Secretary of Agriculture direct the Chief FOIA
Officer for the department to revise the department's FOIA improvement
plan to include activities, goals, and milestones to improve data
reliability for the Farm Service Agency and to monitor results.
To ensure that its plan includes an appropriate focus on communicating
with requesters and the public, we recommend that the Secretary of the
Treasury direct the department's Chief FOIA Officer to review its FOIA
operations in the other areas emphasized in the Executive Order
(increasing reliance on public dissemination of records, improving
communications with FOIA requesters about the status of their requests,
and increasing public awareness of FOIA processing) and, as appropriate,
revise the improvement plan for fiscal year 2007 to include goals and
milestones in these areas.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
We provided a draft of this report to OMB and the 25 agencies for review
and comment. All but one agency (the Department of the Treasury) generally
agreed with our assessment and recommendations or had no comment.^46 Seven
agencies provided written comments: the Departments of Agriculture,
Justice, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, along with AID, EPA, and NSF
(printed in apps. II through VIII). In addition, OMB, the Interior,
Transportation, HUD, OPM, and SSA provided technical comments, which we
incorporated as appropriate.
The Acting Director of Justice's Office of Information and Policy
concurred with our assessment and stated that Justice agrees with our
recommendation and plans to implement it (see app. III). The Acting
Director stated that the office plans to resume compiling summaries of the
annual reports, beginning with those for fiscal year 2006.
The Chief FOIA Officer of Agriculture provided additional information on
actions that the department has taken to improve FOIA processing, as well
as actions that the Farm Service Agency is taking to ensure that its data
are reliable (see app. II).
Except for Treasury, other agencies providing written comments generally
provided additional information on their FOIA programs or provided
suggestions on the draft.
oEPA and NSF offered additional information about their FOIA operations.
oBoth VA and AID stated their view that ample time should be given to
accommodate reporting changes.
oVA also suggested including cases both received and processed in our
discussion of the increase in pending requests. We augmented the section
on pending requests to include a reference to statistics on cases received
and processed.
In written and e-mail comments, the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Headquarters Operations indicated that the department generally agreed
with our premise that Treasury's plan needs to more thoroughly integrate
the Executive Order and noted that the plan is a living, dynamic document
that will accommodate changing circumstances. (Treasury's written comments
are provided in app. IV.) The Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary stated
that the department will be evaluating its improvement plan and taking
action to improve its FOIA administration. However, Treasury also
partially disagreed with our assessment, and it disagreed with our
recommendation.
According to Treasury, our assessment and recommendation minimize the
importance of reducing backlog in the Executive Order and Justice guidance
and do not give sufficient weight to other aspects of its improvement
plan, such as the establishment of a FOIA council to improve FOIA
administration, the establishment of FOIA Requester Service Centers and
Public Liaisons, and its compliance with the e-FOIA amendments'
requirement that frequently posted records be posted on agency Web sites.
Further, Treasury considered that our assessment does not sufficiently
recognize the activities and programs that the department already had in
place (beyond backlog reduction) before the order was issued, which were
not included in its plan (such as technology improvements to upgrade the
department's FOIA tracking system in 2005 and to upgrade IRS databases).
We do not believe that we minimize the importance of reducing backlog; our
report indicates that this is a major focus of the Executive Order.
However, it was not the only focus of the Executive Order, which also
emphasized a citizen-centered approach to FOIA implementation. The three
areas of emphasis that we suggest would benefit from further attention are
all related to a citizen-centered approach in that they focus on
communication with the public and especially with requesters. It may be
that Treasury's FOIA council will provide this focus; however, this was
not clear from the agency's plan, which included no milestones or goals in
these areas to guide the council's future activities.
We also disagree with Treasury's view that we do not give sufficient
weight to the activities that the plan included or that Treasury officials
indicated were already in progress. Although we took these into account,
they did not provide evidence that Treasury was already giving or planned
to give the level of attention to the three areas of emphasis that was
envisioned by the Executive Order. For example, although Treasury's
compliance with the 1996 e-FOIA amendments is important, the Executive
Order asks agencies to look for opportunities to go beyond complying with
legal requirements to disseminate records. Similarly, although the
technology improvements that Treasury described have the potential to
improve FOIA processing (including improvements in the three areas of
emphasis), the plan did not tie these improvements and actions to goals or
milestones in the three areas. As a result, we did not change our
assessment. However, we have clarified the language of the report to
emphasize that our assessment is based on meeting the level of attention
emphasized in the Executive Order.
We note, however, that Treasury in its comments indicates that it does
plan to continue to reevaluate its improvement plan and modify it to
accommodate changing circumstances. If future modifications specifically
address external communications, particularly with requesters, the goal of
our recommendation may be achieved.
We are sending copies of this report to the Attorney General, the Director
of the Office of Management and Budget, and the heads of departments and
agencies we reviewed. Copies will be made available to others on request.
In addition, this report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web
site at www.gao.gov.
If you should have questions about this report, please contact me at (202)
512-6240 or via e-mail at [email protected] . Contact points for
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on
the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to
this report are listed in appendix XI.
Linda D. Koontz
Director, Information Management Issues
Appendix I
Scope and Methodology
To gauge agencies' progress in processing requests, we analyzed the
workload data (from fiscal year 2002 through 2005) included in the 25
agencies' annual FOIA reports to assess trends in volume of requests
received and processed, median processing times, and the number of pending
cases. All agency workload data were self-reported in annual reports
submitted to the Attorney General.
To assess the reliability of the information contained in agency annual
reports, we interviewed officials from selected agencies and assessed
quality control processes agencies had in place. We selected 10 agencies
to assess data reliability: the Departments of Agriculture (USDA),
Defense, Education, the Interior, Labor, and Veterans Affairs, as well as
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Science
Foundation, Small Business Administration, and Social Security
Administration. We chose the Social Security Administration and Veterans
Affairs because they processed a majority of the requests. To ensure that
we selected agencies of varying size, we chose the remaining 8 agencies by
ordering them according to the number of requests they received, from
smallest to largest, and choosing every third agency. These 10 agencies
account for 97 percent of the received requests that were reported in the
25 agencies' annual reports.
Of the 10 agencies that were assessed for data reliability, we determined
that the data for USDA's Farm Service Agency were not reliable; these data
account for over 80 percent of the reported USDA data. We therefore
eliminated USDA's data from our analysis. Because of this elimination, our
analysis was of 24 major agencies^1 (herein we refer to this scope as
governmentwide). Table 9 shows the 25 agencies and their reliability
assessment status.
Table 9: Agencies Reviewed
Agency Abbreviation Data reliability
assessment
Agency for International Development AID Not assessed
Central Intelligence Agency CIA Not assessed
Department of Agriculture USDA Not reliable
Department of Commerce DOC Not assessed
Department of Defense DOD Reliable
Department of Education ED Reliable
Department of Energy DOE Not assessed
Department of Health and Human Services HHS Not assessed
Department of Homeland Security ^a DHS Not assessed
Federal Emergency Management Agency ^a FEMA Not applicable
Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD Not assessed
Department of the Interior DOI Reliable
Department of Justice DOJ Not assessed
Department of Labor DOL Reliable
Department of State State Not assessed
Department of the Treasury Treas Not assessed
Department of Transportation DOT Not assessed
Department of Veterans Affairs VA Reliable
Environmental Protection Agency EPA Not assessed
General Services Administration GSA Not assessed
National Aeronautics and Space NASA Reliable
Administration
National Science Foundation NSF Reliable
Nuclear Regulatory Commission NRC Not assessed
Office of Personnel Management OPM Not assessed
Small Business Administration SBA Reliable
Social Security Administration SSA Reliable
Source: GAO.
^aFEMA information was reported separately in fiscal year 2002. In fiscal
years 2003, 2004, and 2005, FEMA was part of DHS.
To determine to what extent the agency improvement plans contain the
elements emphasized by the order, we first analyzed the Executive Order to
determine how it described the contents of the improvement plans. We
determined that the order emphasized the following areas to be addressed
by the plans: (1) reducing the backlog of FOIA requests, (2) increasing
reliance on public dissemination of records (affirmative and proactive)
including through Web sites, (3) improving communications with FOIA
requesters about the status of their requests, and (4) increasing public
awareness of FOIA processing including updating an agency's FOIA Reference
Guide. We also analyzed the improvement plans to determine if they
contained specific outcome-oriented goals and timetables for each of the
criteria. We then analyzed the 25 agencies' (including USDA) plans to
determine whether they contained goals and timetables for each of these
four elements.^2 We evaluated the versions of agency plans available as
of December 15, 2006.
We also reviewed the Executive Order itself, implementing guidance issued
by OMB and the Department of Justice, other FOIA guidance issued by
Justice, and our past work in this area.
We conducted our review in accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards. We performed our work from May 2006 to January 2007 in
Washington, D.C.
Appendix II
Comments from the Department of Agriculture
Appendix III
Comments from the Department of Justice
Appendix IV
Comments from the Department of the Treasury
Appendix V
Comments from the Department of Veterans Affairs
Appendix VI
Comments from the Agency for International Development
Appendix VII
Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency
Appendix VIII
Comments from the National Science Foundation
Appendix IX
Freedom of Information Act Exemptions
The act prescribes nine specific categories of information that is exempt
from disclosure:
Exemption number Matters that are exempt from FOIA
(1) (A) Specifically authorized under criteria established by
an Executive Order to be kept secret in the interest of
national defense or foreign policy and (B) are in fact
properly classified pursuant to such Executive Order.
(2) Related solely to the internal personnel rules and
practices of an agency.
(3) Specifically exempted from disclosure by statute (other
than section 552b of this title), provided that such
statute (A) requires that matters be withheld from the
public in such a manner as to leave no discretion on the
issue, or (B) establishes particular criteria for
withholding or refers to particular types of matters to
be withheld.
(4) Trade secrets and commercial or financial information
obtained from a person and privileged or confidential.
(5) Inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which
would not be available by law to a party other than an
agency in litigation with the agency.
(6) Personnel and medical files and similar files the
disclosure of which would constitute a clearly
unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
(7) Records or information compiled for law enforcement
purposes, but only to the extent that the production of
such law enforcement records or information
(A) could reasonably be expected to interfere with
enforcement proceedings;
(B) would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or
impartial adjudication;
(C) could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted
invasion of personal privacy;
(D) could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of
a confidential source, including a State, local, or
foreign agency or authority or any private institution
which furnished information on a confidential basis, and,
in the case of a record or information compiled by a
criminal law enforcement authority in the course of a
criminal investigation or by an agency conducting a
lawful national security intelligence investigation,
information furnished by confidential source;
(E) would disclose techniques and procedures for law
enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would
disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or
prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be
expected to risk circumvention of the law; or
(F) could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or
physical safety of an individual.
(8) Contained in or related to examination, operating, or
condition reports prepared by, on behalf of, or for the
use of an agency responsible for the regulation of
supervision of financial institutions.
(9) Geological and geophysical information and data,
including maps, concerning wells.
Source: 5 U.S.C. S 552(b)(1) through (b)(9).
Appendix X
Median Processing Times Reported
The attached tables present median processing times as reported by
agencies in their annual FOIA reports in fiscal years 2004 and 2005. To
provide context, we include numbers of requests processed for each agency
or component. We also indicate (in columns headed "+-") whether the median
days to process rose (+), fell (-), or remained unchanged (=). (We also
use "~" to indicate other types of changes, such as the establishment of a
new component.)
Agencies report median processing times according to processing tracks:
that is, some agencies divide requests into simple and complex categories
and process these in separate tracks, whereas others use a single track.
Accordingly, the tables show these tracks where applicable. In addition,
agencies are required to subject some requests to expedited processing,
and these are reported as a separate track.
Tables for the agencies are presented in the following order, which
corresponds to the order generally used in the figures and tables provided
in the statement:
AID Agency for International Development
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
DHS Department of Homeland Security
DOC Department of Commerce
DOD Department of Defense
DOE Department of Energy
DOI Department of the Interior
DOJ Department of Justice
DOL Department of Labor
DOT Department of Transportation
ED Department of Education
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
GSA General Services Administration
HHS Department of Health and Human Services
HUD Department of Housing and Urban Development
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NRC Nuclear Regulatory Commission
NSF National Science Foundation
OPM Office of Personnel Management
SBA Small Business Administration
SSA Social Security Administration
State Department of State
Treas Department of the Treasury
VA Department of Veterans Affairs
Agency for International Development
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Single Expedited
No. Days No. Days
Agency 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
AID 209 196 54 55 + 3 1 13 34 +
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
Central Intelligence Agency
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Agency 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
CIA 501 577 7 7 = 2,834 2,533 63 68 + 1 0 10 n/a
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
Department of Homeland Security
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Component 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
Office of the 279 604 19 16 - 98 134 66 102 + 48 1 9 11 +
Secretary/
Privacy Office
Office of the n/a 0 n/a n/a 21 14 44 91 + 0 3 n/a 5
Inspector
General
Office of the (a) 0 (a) n/a ~ (a) 1 (a) 222 ~ (a) 0 (a) n/a ~
General
Counsel
Information n/a 0 n/a n/a n/a 51 n/a 30 ~ n/a 0 n/a n/a
Analysis &
Infrastructure
Protection
Emergency 101 186 14 61 + 128 345 48 178 + 28 14 9 45 +
Preparedness &
Response
Science & (a) 1 (a) 30 ~ (a) 1 (a) 210 ~ (a) 0 (a) n/a ~
Technology
U.S. Coast 6,735 6,035 13 16 + 638 608 21 21 = 30 11 11 2 -
Guard
U.S. Secret 0 0 n/a n/a 912 701 111 149 + 0 0 n/a n/a
Service
U.S. 105,567 85,307 16 45 + 27,850 19,532 31 55 + 580 95 8 15 +
Citizenship &
Immigration
Services
US-VISIT (a) 14 (a) 17 ~ (a) 1 (a) 60 ~ (a) 0 (a) n/a ~
Border &
Transportation
Security
CBP 2,317 3,174 20 17 - 1,986 3,815 30 12 - 4 890 3 17 +
TSA 828 11 8 16 + 1,307 1,199 29 13 - 2 2 45 28 -
ICE 1,124 661 84 35 - n/a 881 n/a 242 ~ n/a 0 n/a n/a
FLETC n/a 0 n/a n/a ~ 1,451 1,834 5 3 - 0 0 n/a n/a
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
^aComponent did not exist.
Department of Commerce
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Agency 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
Commerce 1,564 1,321 13 12 - 465 511 41 40 - 6 2 5 8 +
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
Department of Defense
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Agency 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
Defense 63,443 66,979 17 16 - 12,972 11,385 59 85 + 841 411 1 0 -
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
Department of Energy
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Component 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
National 118 76 30 15 - 99 108 58 170 + 0 0 n/a n/a
Nuclear
Security
Administration
Service Center
Albuquerque
Bonneville 54 54 12 20 + 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Power
Administration
Carlsbad Field 0 654 n/a 20 10 14 35 57 + 0 0 n/a n/a
Office
Chicago 0 36 n/a 21 38 0 21 n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Operations
Office
Golden Field 21 11 14 33 + 2 1 20.5 66 + 0 0 n/a n/a
Office
Idaho 45 46 11 13 + 34 34 41 36 - 0 0 n/a n/a
Operations
Office
National 9 7 20 10 - 9 26 25 30 + 0 0 n/a n/a
Energy
Technology
Operations
Office of (a) 7 (a) 10 ~ (a) 0 (a) n/a (a) 0 (a) n/a ~
Naval Reactors
Oak Ridge 1,012 970 158 31 - 139 42 257 112 - 30 14 7 12 +
Operations
Office
Ohio 89 156 152 28 - 0 0 n/a n/a 10 0 5 n/a ~
Environmental
Management
Consolidated
Business
Center
Office of 42 71 15 19 + 29 13 60 73 + 0 0 n/a 0
Repository
Development
Richland 0 190 n/a 31 115 0 18 n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Operations
Office
Rocky Flats 0 794 n/a 106 16 0 916 n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Environmental
Management
Consolidated
Business
Center
Savannah River 65 40 61 73 + 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Operations
Office
Office of 1 3 1 10 + 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Scientific and
Technical
Information
Southeastern 3 0 10 n/a 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Power
Administration
Southwestern 5 4 10 5 - 0 2 n/a 10 0 0 n/a n/a
Power
Administration
Strategic 13 13 10 21 + 0 2 n/a 82 0 4 n/a 1
Petroleum
Reserve
Western Area 35 40 10 10 = 2 4 20 15 - 0 1 n/a 5
Power
Administration
Department of 395 384 81 41 - 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Energy
Headquarters
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
^aComponent did not exist.
Department of the Interior
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Component 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
Department 4,126 6,206 3-834 2-43 ~ 30 189 56-99 28-89 ~ 63 25 2-64 1-15 ~
of the
Interior
Office of (a) (a) 3-48 2-12 (a) (a) 99 89 - (a) (a) 64 2 -
the
Secretary
Office of (a) (a) 834 7 - (a) (a) n/a n/a (a) (a) 2 1 -
Inspector
General
Office of (a) (a) 15 18 + (a) (a) n/a n/a (a) (a) n/a n/a
the
Solicitor
Office of (a) (a) 21 13 - (a) (a) 0 55 + (a) (a) n/a n/a
Surface
Mining
Minerals (a) (a) 22 8-20 ~ (a) (a) n/a 28 (a) (a) 14 n/a
Management
Service
Bureau of (a) (a) 13-21 23 (a) (a) 56 57 + (a) (a) 5 6 +
Land
Management
Fish and (a) (a) 35 29 - (a) (a) n/a n/a (a) (a) 10 15 +
Wildlife
Service
National (a) (a) 20 19 - (a) (a) n/a n/a (a) (a) 10 n/a
Park
Service
Bureau of (a) (a) 20 18 - (a) (a) n/a n/a (a) (a) 8 1 -
Reclamation
U.S. (a) (a) 18 14 - (a) (a) n/a n/a (a) (a) n/a n/a
Geological
Survey
Bureau of (a) (a) 158 43 - (a) (a) n/a n/a (a) (a) n/a n/a
Indian
Affairs
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
^aStatistics not broken down by component.
Note: The Department of Interior reported the number of requests processed
as a department, not by individual components. The Department of Interior
reports simple, normal, and complex tracks. The range used for simple
requests contains both simple and normal requests.
Department of Justice
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Component 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
Office of the 401 213 17 27 + 23 35 480 362 - 2 3 135 96 -
Attorney General
Office of the 246 108 17 29 + 15 10 291 363 + 0 2 n/a 62
Deputy Attorney
General
Office of the 52 40 44 89 + 4 0 344 n/a 1 2 47 112 +
Associate
Attorney General
Antitrust 145 131 18 19 + 13 14 412 484 + 1 0 18 n/a
Division
Bureau of Prisons 15,047 13,243 15 16 + 680 475 28 29 + 13 25 1 3 +
Bureau of 2,437 1,719 7 8 + 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms, and
Explosives
Civil Division 859 466 9 10 + 0 0 n/a n/a 0 1 n/a 7
Civil Rights 473 565 8 8 = 60 100 283 359 + 0 0 n/a n/a
Division
Community 8 2 10 10 = 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Relations Service
Criminal Division 0 0 n/a n/a 1,414 1,291 16 35 + 2 1 31 97 +
Drug Enforcement 0 0 n/a n/a 1,933 1,569 12 16 + 0 0 n/a n/a
Administration
Environment and 0 0 n/a n/a 177 145 40 53 + 0 0 n/a n/a
Natural Resources
Division
Executive Office 7,811 9,367 29 43 + 681 476 89 149 + 65 27 26 44 +
for Immigration
Review
Executive Office 4,848 3,751 46 58 + 0 0 n/a n/a 73 84 195 169 -
for United States
Attorneys
Executive Office 0 0 n/a n/a 61 65 6 19 + 0 0 n/a n/a
for United States
Trustees
Federal Bureau of 10,253 10,828 6 6 = (b) (b) n/a n/a 35 14 41 42 +
Investigation
Foreign Claims 17 9 5 5 = 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Settlement
Commission
Justice 3,128 2,130 8 (c) 31 35 35 (c) 0 0 n/a n/a
Management
Division
National Drug 80 58 22 21 - 3 3 30 73 + 0 0 n/a n/a
Intelligence
Center
Office of 101 61 14 8 - 0 0 n/a n/a 2 0 6 n/a
Community
Oriented Policing
Services
Office of Dispute 8 4 5 5 = 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Resolution
Office of the 27 11 7 8 + 2 0 105 n/a 0 1 n/a 7
Federal Detention
Trustee
Office of 434 443 12 13 + 1 1 397 52 - 0 1 n/a 185
Information and
Privacy
Office of the 241 208 10 11.5 + 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Inspector General
Office of 28 33 8 6 - 6 17 27 31 + 0 2 n/a 16
Intelligence
Policy and Review
Office of 15 6 41 46 + 0 0 n/a n/a 0 1 n/a 38
Intergovernmental
and Public
Liaison
Office of Justice 493 206 1 2 + 59 108 25 25 = 0 0 n/a n/a
Programs
Office of Legal 55 68 10 10 = 9 16 30 30 = 0 1 n/a 40
Counsel
Office of Legal 47 76 37 58 + 2 3 188 863 + 0 2 n/a 28
Policy
Office of 58 63 84 86 + 6 9 386 330 - 0 2 n/a 67
Legislative
Affairs
Office of the 40 43 29 21 - 3 0 100 n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Pardon Attorney
Office of 129 86 19 15 - 7 9 389 334 - 0 0 n/a n/a
Professional
Responsibility
Office of Public 20 22 137 139 + 3 3 226 730 + 0 0 n/a n/a
Affairs
Office of the 73 64 60 60 = 0 0 n/a n/a 2 22 8 10 +
Solicitor General
Office on (a) 14 (a) 50 ~ (a) 0 (a) n/a ~ (a) 0 (a) n/a ~
Violence Against
Women
Professional 13 14 3 3.5 + 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Responsibility
Advisory Office
Tax Division 226 237 0 0 = 27 26 15 28 + 0 0 n/a n/a
U.S. Marshals 1,531 999 21 26 + 16 17 130 195.5 + 0 0 n/a n/a
Service
U.S. National 271 184 5 6 + 10 18 24 21 - 2 3 3 2 -
Central
Bureau--INTERPOL
U.S. Parole 0 0 n/a n/a 1,351 1,011 20 12 - 0 0 n/a n/a
Commission
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
^aComponent did not exist.
^bIn addition to the expedited track, the FBI maintains three tracks for
requests: small (0 to 500 pages), medium (501 to 2,500 pages), and large
(more than 2,500 pages). The former is reported in the "simple requests"
category; the latter two are reported as "complex requests." Therefore
FBI's complex requests were excluded from analysis.
^cJustice Management Division used average days opposed to median days, so
it was excluded.
Department of Labor
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Component 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
Occupational 8,410 7,855 7 13 + 2,695 3,431 18 45 + 34 82 4 18 +
Safety and Health
Administration
Employment 6,670 6,948 17 13 - 1,057 904 23 37 + 89 73 5 9 +
Standards
Administration
Mine Safety and 1,150 0 17 n/a 0 1,058 n/a 20 0 3 n/a 7
Health
Administration
Employment and 480 270 15 20 + 35 94 20 30 + 1 5 2 10 +
Training
Administration
Employee Benefits 367 1,456 11 7 - 65 257 40 34 - 0 2 n/a 10
Security
Administration
Office of the 152 151 13 13 = 62 35 20 26 + 1 1 2 4 +
Assistant
Secretary for
Administration
and Management
Administrative 215 206 2 10 + 0 0 n/a n/a 0 6 n/a 3
Law Judges
Veterans' 71 87 27 10 - 15 19 29 39 + 2 1 8 8 =
Employment and
Training Service
Office of the 71 47 30 28 - 8 28 60 50 - 0 0 n/a n/a
Inspector General
Bureau of Labor 56 54 13 17 + 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Statistics
Office of 25 52 7 6 - 4 0 18 n/a 2 0 2 n/a
Adjudicatory
Services
Womens Bureau 27 19 15 10 - 0 2 n/a 25 0 0 n/a n/a
Office of 12 23 20 30 + 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Disability
Employment Policy
Office of the 3 16 25 20 - 2 1 25 60 + 1 0 25 n/a
Assistant
Secretary for
Policy
Office of 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Congressional and
Intergovernmental
Affairs
Bureau of 4 24 16 7 - 9 2 30 14 - 0 0 n/a n/a
International
Labor Affairs
Office of the 12 8 10 7 - 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Chief Financial
Officer
Office of Public 7 8 7 7 = 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Affairs
Office of Small 22 22 30 10 - 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Business Programs
Office of the 62 30 12 14 + 7 3 54 30 - 0 1 n/a 2
Solicitor
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
Department of Transportation
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Component 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
Office of the 320 150 1 1 = 394 87 82 77 - 0 10 n/a 30
Secretary of
Transportation
Office of 60 50 6 8 + 46 34 51 64 + 3 0 57 n/a
Inspector
General
Federal 5,162 4,401 4 3 - 2,231 2,179 31 28 - 45 46 8 9 +
Aviation
Administration
Federal 331 294 9 16 + 30 31 30 134 + 0 17 n/a 13
Highway
Administration
Federal 0 0 n/a n/a 524 451 95 90 - 0 0 n/a n/a
Railroad
Administration
National 0 0 n/a n/a 367 263 23 20 - 0 0 n/a n/a
Highway
Traffic Safety
Administration
Federal 192 199 68 29 - 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Transit
Administration
Saint Lawrence 36 0 18 n/a 0 33 n/a 20 0 0 n/a n/a
Seaway
Development
Corporation
Maritime 0 124 n/a 30 155 0 30 n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Administration
Research and 85 43 19 15 - 89 75 135 40 - 11 1 5 5 =
Special
Programs
Administration
Federal Motor 0 0 n/a n/a 778 823 58 31 - 0 0 n/a n/a
Carrier Safety
Administration
Bureau of 46 67 5 11 + 0 6 n/a 20 0 0 n/a n/a
Transportation
Statistics
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
Department of Education
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Agency 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
Education 1,566 1,874 0-30 35 ~ 442 329 2-134 66 ~ 74 16 3-21 24 ~
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
Environmental Protection Agency
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Component 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
Headquarters 2,188 1,717 19 19 = 1 42 170 58 - 6 2 16 20 +
Region 1 New 317 249 19 18 - 0 2 29 46 + 0 0 n/a n/a
England
Region
Region 2 New 2,949 1,912 27 30 + 7 2 49 40 - 1 1 9 8 -
Jersey, New
York, Puerto
Rico, U.S.
Virgin
Islands and
7 Tribal
Nations
Region 3 1,748 1,699 15 13 - 0 9 n/a 4 1 0 7 n/a
Mid-Atlantic
Region 4 1,034 852 21 19 - 5 71 75 41 - 1 0 6 n/a
Southeast
Region
Region 5 2,011 1,920 18 18 = 2 3 70 30 - 0 0 n/a n/a
Mid-West
Region
Region 6 860 624 18 32 + 1 0 353 n/a 0 2 n/a 109
South
Central
Region
Region 7 651 767 23 27 + 0 2 n/a 166 0 0 n/a n/a
America's
Heartland
Region
Region 8 387 332 13 15 + 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Mountains
and Plains
Region
Region 9 725 588 16 18 + 0 39 n/a 38 1 0 6 n/a
Pacific
Southwest
Region
Region 10 454 273 20 20 = 1 0 19 n/a 1 0 27 n/a
Pacific
Northwest
Region
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
General Services Administration
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Agency 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
GSA 0 0 n/a n/a 1,182 1,561 14 14 = 0 0 n/a n/a
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
Department of Health and Human Services
Two tables are provided for this department, because its components report
both multitrack (simple and complex) processing and single-track
processing.
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex
No. Days No. Days
Component 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
Office of the 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Secretary
Administration (a) 0 (a) n/a ~ (a) 0 (a) n/a ~
for Children
and Families
Administration 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
on Aging
Centers for 31,051 33,583 9 10 + 652 722 77 86 +
Medicare &
Medicaid
Services
Office of the 72 179 10 10 = 446 611 60 60 =
Assistant
Secretary for
Public Health
Agency for 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Healthcare
Research and
Quality
Centers for 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Disease
Control and
Prevention
Food and Drug 13,626 15,539 25 26 + 1,993 1,987 325 370 +
Administration
Health 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Resources and
Services
Administration
Indian Health 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Services
National 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Institutes of
Health
Substance 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Abuse and
Mental Health
Services
Administration
Single Expedited
No. Days No. Days
Component 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
Office of the 1,147 934 55 69 + 1 1 2 60 +
Secretary
Administration (a) 137 (a) 40 ~ (a) 4 (a) 41 ~
for Children
and Families
Administration 13 22 5 5 = 0 0 n/a n/a
on Aging
Centers for 0 0 n/a n/a 11 42 66 158 +
Medicare &
Medicaid
Services
Office of the 0 0 n/a n/a 0 0 n/a n/a
Assistant
Secretary for
Public Health
Agency for 76 94 25 34 + 0 0 n/a n/a
Healthcare
Research and
Quality
Centers for 977 1,134 36 36 = 2 2 52 52 =
Disease
Control and
Prevention
Food and Drug 2,921 1,007 113 86 - 0 2 n/a 100
Administration
Health 416 380 20 20 = 0 6 n/a 14
Resources and
Services
Administration
Indian Health 158,277 151,428 32 32 = 0 0 n/a n/a
Services
National 10,583 13,382 182 173 - 0 0 n/a n/a
Institutes of
Health
Substance 132 206 38 45 + 0 0 n/a n/a
Abuse and
Mental Health
Services
Administration
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
^aComponent did not exist.
Department of Housing and Urban Development
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Component 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
Headquarters 1,676 984 95 65 - 248 271 161 160 - 70 74 42 22 -
Field 1,510 1,150 21 21 = 10 15 30 35 + 95 160 23 70 +
Office of 354 254 55 45 - 0 0 n/a n/a 15 15 9 9 =
Inspector
General
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Agency 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
NASA 1,069 938 18 19 + 454 410 33 49 + 44 3 26 15 -
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Agency 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
NRC 357 303 11 12 + 27 28 47 75 + 5 14 60 20 -
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
National Science Foundation
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Single Expedited
No. Days No. Days
Agency 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
NSF 309 266 20 14 - 0 0 n/a n/a
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
Office of Personnel Management
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Single Expedited
No. Days No. Days
Agency 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
OPM 9,310 10,900 9 14 + 0 2 n/a 1
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
Small Business Administration
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Single Expedited
No. Days No. Days
Agency 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
SBA 1,927 3,737 5 7 + 0 0 n/a n/a
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
Social Security Administration
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex
No. Days No. Days
Agency 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
SSA 397 364 19 15 - 882 1,014 37 39 +
Single Expedited
No. Days No. Days
Agency 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
SSA 1,321 1,555 14 10 - 0 31 n/a 17
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
Note: The tables exclude SSA's category of "simple requests handled by
non-FOIA staff" and "simple request for Social Security number
applications and other Office of Earnings Operations records." The
category SSA labels "fast track" was reported under "single track."
Department of State
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Agency 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
State 1,236 1,647 6 14 + 3,710 2,216 209 142 - 17 7 184 136 -
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
Department of the Treasury
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Simple Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days No. Days
Component 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
The 332 307 2 2 = 782 790 172 251 + 0 0 n/a n/a
Departmental
Offices
Alcohol and 0 168 n/a 86 201 17 78 93 + 0 1 n/a 1
Tobacco Tax
and Trade
Bureau
Office of the 322 4,635 10 2 - 8,030 179 50 73 + 0 0 n/a n/a
Comptroller of
the Currency
Bureau of 69 76 4 3 - 44 12 60 31 - 1 0 5 n/a
Engraving and
Printing
Financial 0 0 n/a n/a 529 351 7 10 + 0 0 n/a n/a
Management
Service
Internal 0 0 n/a n/a 51,985 42,533 21 21 = 0 0 n/a n/a
Revenue
Service
United States 0 0 n/a n/a 67 316 15 15 = 0 0 n/a n/a
Mint
Bureau of the 0 0 n/a n/a 91 90 4 3 - 0 0 n/a n/a
Public Debt
Office of 0 0 n/a n/a 1,827 4,003 15 12 - 2 0 n/a n/a
Thrift
Supervision
Treasury 0 208 n/a 4 256 161 172 30 - 0 0 10 n/a
Inspector
General for
Tax
Administration
Financial 0 18 n/a 6 32 122 99 95 - 0 0 n/a n/a
Crimes
Enforcement
Network
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
Department of Veterans Affairs
The department reports all processing in one track, but it refers to this
track as complex, rather than single track.
No. = number of requests processed; Days = median days to process; +- =
change from 2004 to 2005
Complex Expedited
No. Days No. Days
Component 2004 2005 2004 2005 +- 2004 2005 2004 2005 +-
Acquisition & 376** 289** 4** 2.5 - 0** 0** n/a n/a
Material
Management
Administration 0** 1,463** n/a 4 0** 0** n/a n/a
Board of Contract 0** 0** n/a n/a 0** 0** n/a n/a
Appeals
Board of Veterans 1,006** 1,049** 49** 19 - 0** 0** n/a n/a
Appeals
Congressional & 0** (a) n/a (a) ~ 0** (a) n/a (a) ~
Legislative
Affairs
Diversity 0** 0** n/a n/a 0** 0** n/a n/a
Management &
Equal Employment
Opportunity
General Counsel 67** 65** 35** 15 - 0** 2** n/a 10
Human Resources 45** 1** 31.5** 4 - 0** 0** n/a n/a
Management
Inspector 347** 287** 10** 16 + 0** 0** n/a n/a
General
Information 0** 0** n/a n/a 0** 0** n/a n/a
Technology
Support Service
Office of 0** 0** n/a n/a 0** 0** n/a n/a
Management
National Cemetery 0** 19** n/a 15 16** 0** 18 n/a
Administration
Office of the 0** 0** n/a n/a 0** 0** n/a n/a
Assistant
Secretary for
Human Resources &
Administration
Office of the 0** 0** n/a n/a 0** 0** n/a n/a
Assistant
Secretary for
Public &
Intergovernmental
Affairs
Office of the 0** 8** n/a 1 16** 0** 1** n/a
Deputy Assistant
Secretary for
Budget
Office of the 0** 10** n/a 1 0** 0** n/a n/a
Deputy Assistant
Secretary for
Intergovernmental
Affairs
Office of 58** 63** 15** 11.5 - 0** 0** n/a n/a
Finance
Office of 53** 72** 11.5** 51 + 0** 0** n/a n/a
Information &
Technology
Office of 16** 12** 5** 10 + 0** 0** n/a n/a
Resolution
Management
Office of Small & 0** 1** n/a 1 0** 0** n/a n/a
Disadvantaged
Business
Utilization
Policy and 0** 0** n/a n/a 0** 0** n/a n/a
Planning
Public Affairs 0** 0** n/a n/a 0** 0** n/a n/a
Security & Law 0** (a) n/a (a) ~ 0** (a) n/a (a) ~
Enforcement
Office of the 16** 6** 45** 60 + 0** 0** n/a n/a
Secretary
Veterans Benefits 93,296** 83,332** 15** 15.5 + 384** 88** 5** 4.5 -
Administration
Veterans Canteen 0** 0** n/a n/a 0** 0** n/a n/a
Service
Veterans Health 1,699,079** 1,814,837** 4** 1 - 20,730** 13,409** 1** 1 =
Administration
White House 0** 0** n/a n/a 0** 0** n/a n/a
Liaison
+ increase - decrease = no change ~ other change (change in reporting, new
component, etc.)
Sources: Annual FOIA report, GAO analysis.
^aComponent did not exist.
Appendix XI
GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
GAO Contact
Linda D. Koontz, (202) 512-6240 or [email protected]
Staff Acknowledgments
In addition to the contact named above, key contributions to this report
were made by Barbara Collier, Acting Assistant Director; Alan Stapleton,
Assistant Director; James Ashley, Marisol Cruz; Wilfred Holloway; Vernetta
Marquis; David Plocher; Kelly Shaw; Shawn Ward; and Elizabeth Zhao.
(310766)
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-441 .
To view the full product, including the scope
and methodology, click on the link above.
For more information, contact Linda Koontz at (202) 512-6240 or
[email protected].
Highlights of [73]GAO-07-441 , a report to congressional requesters
March 2007
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT
Processing Trends Show Importance of Improvement Plans
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) establishes that federal agencies
must provide access to their information, enabling the public to learn
about government operations and decisions. To help ensure proper
implementation, the act requires that agencies report annually to the
Attorney General, giving specific information about their FOIA operations,
such as numbers of requests received and processed and median processing
times. Also, a recent Executive Order directs agencies to develop plans to
improve FOIA operations, including decreasing backlog.
For this study, GAO was asked to examine the status and trends of FOIA
processing at 25 major agencies as reflected in annual reports, as well as
the extent to which improvement plans contain the elements emphasized by
the Executive Order. To do so, GAO analyzed the 25 agencies' annual
reports and improvement plans.
[74]What GAO Recommends
GAO suggests that the Congress consider requiring annual reports to
provide additional statistics, including arithmetic means. GAO also makes
recommendations to strengthen selected improvement plans, among other
things. The agencies reviewed generally agreed with the draft report,
except that the Treasury partially disagreed with GAO's assessment and
associated recommendation. GAO continues to support its assessment and
recommendation.
Based on data in annual reports from 2002 to 2005, the public continued to
submit more requests for information from the federal government through
FOIA. Despite increasing the numbers of requests processed, many agencies
did not keep pace with the volume of requests that they received. As a
result, the number of pending requests carried over from year to year has
been steadily increasing (see fig.). Agency reports also show great
variations in the median times to process requests (less than 10 days for
some agency components to more than 100 days at others). However, the
ability to determine trends in processing times is limited by the form in
which these times are reported: that is, in medians only, without averages
(that is, arithmetical means) or ranges. Although medians have the
advantage of providing representative numbers that are not skewed by a few
outliers, it is not statistically possible to combine several medians to
develop broader generalizations (as can be done with arithmetical means).
This limitation on aggregating data impedes the development of broader
pictures of FOIA operations, which could be useful in monitoring efforts
to improve processing and reduce the increasing backlog of requests, as
intended by the Executive Order.
The improvement plans submitted by the 25 agencies mostly included goals
and timetables addressing the four areas of improvement emphasized by the
Executive Order: eliminating or reducing any backlog of FOIA requests;
increasing reliance on dissemination of records that can be made available
to the public without the need for a FOIA request, such as through posting
on Web sites; improving communications with requesters about the status of
their requests; and increasing public awareness of FOIA processing. Most
of the plans (20 of 25) provided goals and timetables in all four areas;
some agencies omitted goals in areas where they considered they were
already strong. Although details of a few plans could be improved, all the
plans focus on making measurable improvements and form a reasonable basis
for carrying out the goals of the Executive Order.
Total FOIA Requests Pending at End of Year, 2002-2005
References
Visible links
64. http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/index.html
65. http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/04_6.html.
66. http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/agency_improvement.html.
73. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-441
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