Today OIP posted its guidance to agencies on meeting the new quarterly reporting requirement announced last month.  Agencies will be required to report to the Department of Justice four key FOIA statistics that OIP will then make available on FOIA.gov. 

The quarterly reporting of FOIA data will benefit both the public, which will be able to more regularly track government FOIA administration, and agencies, which will now be able to more easily identify trends to help improve their FOIA operations.

FOIA quarterly reporting for federal agencies will focus on four key statistics of FOIA administration: 

• the number of requests received during the reporting period,
• the number of requests processed during the reporting period,
• the number of requests in an agency’s backlog at the end of the reporting period, and
• the progress being made to close the agency’s ten overall oldest pending FOIA requests from Fiscal Year 2012.  

Agencies must post these figures for Quarter 1 of Fiscal Year 2013 (October 1 – December 31, 2012) no later than January 27, 2013.  Detailed information on the posting is available in the guidance.  OIP’s quarterly Reporting Team is available at DOJ.OIP.FOIA@usdoj.gov to answer any questions agency personnel may have on this new requirement.

Guidance on quarterly FOIA reporting, as well as all guidance from OIP, is available on our Guidance page.

On February 11, 2013, the Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) Privacy Committee is holding an interagency symposium to explore the elements and standards that are necessary to ensure the high quality administration of the FOIA in times of limited resources.  The event, Faster, Better, Cheaper: Building a High Quality FOIA Operation, is designed for managers and supervisors of FOIA operations around the government to explore various issues related to FOIA processing including workforce and staffing, review processes, and appropriate use of technology. 

Office of Information Policy Chief of Staff Carmen L. Mallon will join Department of the Treasury Disclosure Services Director Hugh Gilmore in providing presentations at the symposium, and will  participate in a discussion moderated by Kathleen Styles, Chief Privacy Officer at the Department of Education.  Small group discussions will follow the presentations, allowing for an open dialogue between attendees who fulfill similar roles around the government. 

The details for the symposium are:

Faster, Better, Cheaper: Building a High Quality FOIA Operation
An interagency symposium from the Federal CIO Privacy Committee
Department of Education – Barnard Auditorium
400 Maryland Avenue, SW

Space is limited for this event and is intended for individuals serving in managerial and supervisory roles

If you are interested in attending this symposium, please e-mail your contact information and agency name to Letita.coates@ed.gov by February 7, 2013.  Please remember that a picture ID is required to enter the building for this event.

Last month, the Office of Information Policy (OIP) hosted its first ever training seminar through video conferencing.  The training proved to be a powerful tool, enabling OIP subject matter experts to reach a wider audience of federal employees who work outside of the Washington, DC area, as well as helping agencies reduce or eliminate travel costs and arrangements for employees to attend training.

Because of the overwhelming interest and positive feedback that we received with this training, OIP will host another video conference seminar next month.  This training will again focus on topics such as an Overview of the FOIA, addressing President Obama’s FOIA Memorandum, Attorney General Holder’s FOIA Guidelines, procedural considerations, and the FOIA’s exemptions.

The details for the training are:

An Overview of the FOIA – Video Conference
February 19, 2013
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm

Training is open to all federal employees, with priority for employees outside the Washington, DC area

If you are interested in participating in the video conference, you may register by e-mailing your name, phone number and duty station to OIP’s Training Officer, Bertina Adams Cleveland, at DOJ.OIP.FOIA@usdoj.gov.  If you have any questions regarding this event, please contact Ms. Adams at (202) 514-1010.

When passing the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Congress recognized that there were other federal laws that provided protection for specific types of documents, either currently enacted or that could be passed in the future.  As a result, Congress created Exemption 3 of the FOIA which incorporates the protection afforded by other laws into the FOIA.  This category of information is the only one of the FOIA’s nine exemptions which expressly references other federal laws.

Because the use of Exemption 3 relies on knowledge of various other federal laws, OIP has compiled two key resources to assist agencies in their administration of the FOIA and to increase public understanding of the use of Exemption 3.  These materials, located on the FOIA Resources page of our site, are:

• Statutes Found to Qualify Under Exemption 3 of the FOIA – Recently updated, this is a list of statutes that federal courts have found to qualify under Exemption 3.  Complied to assist agencies in properly processing FOIA requests and aid the public in understanding the scope of this exemption, the list provides the statute citation and name (if applicable), the type of information protected by the statute and the case citation for the case in which a court found that the statute qualified for use with Exemption 3.
• Statutes used in Annual FOIA Reports in conjunction with Exemption 3 of the FOIA – As the statutes used in connection with Exemption 3 and the frequency of use varies by agency, OIP compiles these charts which list the statutes used by all agencies as reported in their Annual FOIA Reports.  Collected from the reports for fiscal years 2010 and 2011, the charts provide the citation of the statute used, the type of information which is protected by the statute, and the agencies which cited the statute when using Exemption 3, as well as the number of times the statue was cited.

Information on the use of Exemption 3 by agencies prior to fiscal year 2010 and a more complete breakdown of the use of this exemption by any agency components is available in agency Annual FOIA Reports on the Reports page of our site (fiscal years 1998-2011) and on FOIA.gov (fiscal years 2008-2011).

In order to ensure proper implementation of the FOIA and its exemptions, OIP has also issued guidance on the use of Exemption 3 as changes to the statute have occurred, most recently when Congress passed the OPEN FOIA Act of 2009.  This, and all guidance issued by OIP, is available on the OIP Guidance page of our site.

Finally, if any agency has questions about the application of a federal statute in connection with Exemption 3, they can contact OIP’s FOIA Counselor Service at (202) 514-FOIA (3642) and one of OIP’s FOIA Counselors will be available to provide individualized guidance.

The Office of Information Policy (OIP) is honored to be selected by the American Society of Access Professionals (ASAP) as the recipient its Directors’ Award for Superior Public Service.  The award is among the highest honors granted by ASAP and recognizes OIP’s “superior contribution, sustained excellence and special benefit provided to the Society and to the public with respect to access, privacy and fair information laws, policies and practices.”

ASAP is an independent, nongovernmental association comprised of FOIA and Privacy Act professionals, journalists, members of open government groups, and college and university faculty and staff “dedicated to bringing government FOIA and Privacy Act personnel in touch with the requester community.”  OIP has a long history of providing instructors to ASAP’s training programs. 

 Since the issuance of President Obama’s FOIA Memorandum and Attorney General Holder’s FOIA Guidelines, we have issued guidance to agencies on their implementation and addressed a range of issues designed to improve FOIA administration.  Within this past year, we have released the following guidance:

• Guidance establishing procedures that streamline the referral and consultation process, enhance agency accountability for the handling of these records, and ensure that FOIA requesters are not disadvantaged by the process,
• Guidance emphasizing the importance of agencies reducing the age of any FOIA backlogs by closing their ten oldest pending requests and consultations,
• Guidance for further improvement based on agencies’ 2012 Chief FOIA Officer Reports, including encouraging agencies to consider the use of more advanced technologies for the core elements of FOIA processing, to consider multi-track processing as a means of improving timeliness, and to make it a priority to close their ten oldest pending requests each year, and  
• New guidance on implementing of the FOIA’s statutory exclusions that ensures greater transparency and accountability. 

We have also provided extensive training to FOIA professionals on these subjects and many other issues concerning the FOIA, including the President’s and Attorney General’s FOIA Memoranda, proactive disclosures, procedural considerations, the proper application of FOIA exemptions, recent developments, and the importance of customer service.  During 2012, Director Melanie Pustay and staff provided training to thousands of FOIA professionals across the government.  Additionally, OIP continues to reach out to the public and the requester community by regularly hosting Requester Roundtables where frequent requesters and open government groups have an opportunity to exchange ideas and discuss important FOIA issues with agency professionals. 

OIP and the Department also continue to enhance the FOIA.gov to provide more functionality for agency FOIA professionals and the requester community. This past year a new search feature was added to the website that allows the public to instantly search for information on any topic that has already been made available on a federal government website.  Additionally, FOIA.gov provides links to agency online request forms, which makes it easier to make requests.  Further, as recently announced on FOIA Post, in addition to allowing users to view and sort through agencies’ Annual FOIA Report data, beginning January 2013, FOIA.gov will also include the quarterly reporting of key FOIA statistics from all agencies. 

We look forward to building on our accomplishments and working with both agencies and the public in continuing to implement President Obama’s FOIA Memorandum and Attorney General Holder’s FOIA Guidelines. 

For further information on training offered by OIP, including dates for upcoming training and presentation materials, please visit our Training page.

Next week, the Office of Information Policy (OIP) hosts its first ever training seminar through video conferencing.  The training will focus on an overview of the FOIA, and address President Obama’s FOIA Memorandum, Attorney General Holder’s FOIA Guidelines, procedural considerations, and the FOIA’s exemptions.

OIP continually looks for ways to expand its training program, and this new training format will reach a wider audience of federal employees — especially those who work outside the Washington, D.C. metro area.  Virtual meeting tools provide an ideal way to train people across the government, while reducing or eliminating travel costs and arrangements.

The details for the training are:

An Overview of the FOIA – Video Conference
December 12, 2012
10:00 am – noon

 Training is open to all federal employees, with priority for employees outside the Washington, DC area

If you are interested in participating in the video conference, you may register by e-mailing your name, phone number and duty station to OIP’s Training Officer, Bertina Adams Cleveland, at DOJ.OIP.FOIA@usdoj.gov.  If you have any questions regarding this event, please contact Ms. Adams at (202) 514-1010.