Chief FOIA Officer Reports for FY 2011 Released

The Chief FOIA Officer’s of government agencies have released their annual reports detailing their current measures to increase FOIA compliance and efficiency. These include steps to increase proactive disclosures, reduce backlogs, technological and process innovations and examinations of the current FOIA request processes.

Agencies are also discussing their attempts to promote openness, primarily based on President Obama’s FOIA Memorandum and Attorney General Holder’s FOIA Guidelines. This has included FOIA officer training for increased support of erring on the side of transparency when evaluating documents for FOIA requests.

Attorney General Holder’s FOIA Guidelines require agencies to report on:
• Steps Taken to Apply the Presumption of Openness
• Steps Taken to Ensure that Your Agency has an Effective System In Place for Responding to Requests
• Steps Taken To Increase Proactive Disclosures
• Steps Taken To Greater Utilize Technology
• Steps Taken to Reduce Backlogs and Improve Timeliness in Responding to Requests

Some agencies have also been asked to provide FOIA success stories, detailing what changes have had the most effect on their FOIA processing and responses and if they are using technology like a commercial off the shelf (COTS) software to assist with receiving, tracking, processing their Freedom of Information requests.
It is clear that while attempts to increase FOIA compliance and openness are in place, efforts from these agencies will continue to evolve to meet the increasing demands placed on these agencies. Specifically, agencies need to continue making the transition to digital processing to increase efficiency, accessibility and management.