Spotlighting Success in FOIA Administration

Sunshine Week 2013 marked the fourth anniversary of the issuance of Attorney General Holder’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Guidelines.  In addition to implementing the presumption of openness in FOIA, these guidelines highlighted the important role of agency Chief FOIA Officers in improving FOIA administration across the government.  The Attorney General directed all Chief FOIA Officers to review their agencies' FOIA administration each year and to report to the Justice Department on the steps taken to implement the FOIA Guidelines and improve FOIA at their agencies.  For the last four years, these Chief FOIA Officer Reports have played an important role in allowing agencies to go beyond the statistics in their Annual FOIA Reports to more fully illustrate the various concrete steps they have taken to implement the Attorney General’s FOIA Guidelines.  The reports give agencies the ability to provide depth and context to the varied steps that they are taking to increase efficiency and improve performance in the FOIA process.  They also provide a vehicle for agencies to describe the innovative ways information is being released to the public proactively. In addition to providing a central location for all the 2013 Chief FOIA Officer Reports submitted by agencies, we have compiled a selection of success stories and agency highlights for the fifteen cabinet departments.  These success stories, and the reports overall, demonstrate the commitment of federal agencies to improve the FOIA process across the entire government.   For more information on agency Chief FOIA Officer Reports, including the reports filed by agencies in previous years, please visit our Reports page.