Guidance Posted for Quarterly FOIA Reporting

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.