United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 2007-03-30 monographic deposited born digital 93 p. GA 1.13:GAO-07-441 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-07-441 P0b002ee1803a52d2 f:d07441 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-28 GAOREPORTS-GAO-07-441 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-GAO-07-441 GAO-07-441 Executive orders Federal agencies Federal Information Processing Standards Federal law Freedom of information Government information Government information dissemination Information disclosure Reporting requirements Reports management Other Written Product A67575 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. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-07-441/html/GAOREPORTS-GAO-07-441.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-07-441/pdf/GAOREPORTS-GAO-07-441.pdf GAO-07-441 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-07-441 Other Written Product GAO-07-441; Freedom of Information Act: Processing Trends Show Importance of Improvement Plans; Executive orders Federal agencies Federal Information Processing Standards Federal law Freedom of information Government information Government information dissemination Information disclosure Reporting requirements Reports management