OIP Issues 2015 Chief FOIA Officer Report Guidelines and Hosts Upcoming Refresher Training

Attorney General Holder’s FOIA Guidelines direct agency Chief FOIA Officers to “review all aspects of their agencies’ FOIA administration” and to report each year to the Department of Justice on the steps taken “to improve FOIA operations and facilitate information disclosure at their agencies.”  Pursuant to the Attorney General's Guidelines, each year OIP provides specific guidance on the content and timing of these reports.  Today, we are issuing the guidelines for agencies' 2015 Chief FOIA Officer Reports.

Over the last five years, OIP’s guidelines for agency Chief FOIA Officer Reports have required agencies to examine five key areas addressed in the Attorney General’s FOIA Guidelines. These five key areas of FOIA administration include:

1. Applying the Presumption of Openness,
2. Ensuring that there are Effective Systems for Responding to Requests,
3. Increasing Proactive Disclosures,
4. Increasing the Utilization of Technology, and

5. Improving Timeliness and Reducing Backlogs.

This year’s Chief FOIA Officer Report guidelines continue to build off of the efforts and initiatives reported in previous years and are designed to capture the more advanced steps taken by agencies in their administration of the FOIA.  The Guidelines also continue to focus on certain key areas where further improvements can be made.

For 2015, OIP is making a significant change from prior years' Chief FOIA Officer Reports by creating streamlined reporting requirements for agencies that receive a lower volume of requests, i.e., less than 1,000 incoming requests.  By providing these lower-volume agencies with separate reporting requirements, we can more easily address the realities and needs of agencies with smaller FOIA administrations.  For those agencies with more than 1,000 requests a year, the guidelines continue to be quite comprehensive.  Other new topics in the guidelines include:

• Agency FOIA Fee Communications,
• Systems for Proactive Disclosures and Identifying Frequently Requested Records, and
• Processes for Routing Misdirected Requests at Decentralized Agencies.

OIP has identified twenty-nine agencies that received over 1,000 requests during the most recent year of available data and has listed them in the Guidelines as the “high-volume” agencies.  Those agencies must submit their draft 2015 Chief FOIA Officer Reports to OIP for review by no later than January 16, 2015.  The remaining agencies, all of which received less than 1,000 requests during the most recent year of available data (and not listed specifically in the Guidelines) must submit their draft reports for review by no later than February 6, 2015.  Additional details on the review and submission process are available in the Guidelines.

OIP will once again host a refresher training seminar on October 7, 2014, covering agency preparation of both the 2015 Chief FOIA Officer Reports and the Fiscal Year 2014 Annual FOIA Reports.  The details for that training are:

Refresher Training for FY 2014 Annual FOIA Reports and 2015 Chief FOIA Officer Reports
Department of Justice, Robert F. Kennedy Building
10th and Constitution Ave., NW – Great Hall
October 7, 2014, 10:00am – 12:30pm

Training is open to agency Chief FOIA Officers, Principal FOIA Contacts, and any other agency personnel who prepare Annual FOIA Reports and/or Chief FOIA Officer Reports (including appropriate IT staff)

If you are interested in attending this refresher training seminar, please e-mail your name and phone number to OIP’s Training Officer at DOJ.OIP.FOIA@usdoj.gov with the subject line “Annual Report and Chief FOIA Officer Report Refresher Training.”  Please note that registration is required to attend and that you will need a picture ID to enter the building.  If you have any questions regarding this event, please contact OIP’s Training Officer at (202) 514-3642.