Section II: Steps Taken to Ensure that Your Agency Has an Effective System in Place for Responding to Requests

DOJ’s FOIA Guidelines emphasize that “[a]pplication of the proper disclosure standard is only one part of ensuring transparency. Open government requires not just a presumption of disclosure, but also an effective system for responding to FOIA requests.” It is essential that agencies effectively manage their FOIA program.

Please answer the following questions to describe the steps your agency has taken to ensure that the management of your FOIA program is effective and efficient. You should also include any additional information that that describes your agency's efforts in this area.

1. For Fiscal Year 2017, what was the average number of days your agency reported for adjudicating requests for expedited processing? Please see Section VIII.A. of your agency's Fiscal Year 2017 Annual FOIA Report.

During FY 2017, HHS reported an agency-wide average of 6.39 days to adjudicate expedited processing requests. The agency-wide median was 5 days.

2. If your agency's average number of days to adjudicate requests for expedited processing was above ten calendar days, please describe the steps your agency will take to ensure that requests for expedited processing are adjudicated within ten calendar days or less.

Not applicable; please see our response to Question 1.

3. During the reporting period, did your agency conduct a self-assessment of its FOIA program? If so, please describe the methods used, such as reviewing Annual Report data, using active workflows and track management, reviewing and updating processing procedures, etc.

Note: In September 2017, OIP released a FOIA Self-Assessment Toolkit as a resource for agencies conducting a self-assessment of their FOIA program. The Toolkit is available on OIP’s website for all agencies to use.

  • The OS FOIA Director conducted quarterly meetings with Departmental FOIA Directors to discuss operational data, solicit opinions, encourage and engage the OpDiv’s FOIA Directors as a community, and foster discussion of common operational challenges and possible solutions or policy guidance.
  • ACL conducted annual self-assessments utilizing annual report data and ACL’s FOIA tracker, and updates the intranet and internet webpages pertaining to FOIA policies and procedures on an annual basis.
  • CMS is engaged in an ongoing assessment of the FOIA process in regional offices, and has reviewed the use of technical tools to enhance the production of records analysis.
  • FDA routinely reviewed its FOIA policies to ensure that requests are being processed in the most efficient and accurate manner. FDA has reviewed the OIP Self-Assessment toolkit and will be implementing it as appropriate with respect to certain parts of the FDA FOIA program.
  • HRSA used the weekly and quarterly FOIA reports to conduct an ongoing assessment of performance by comparing the current statistics with those from FY 2017 and FY 2016 from the same approximate week or quarter. This has served as an “early warning system,” and has highlighted that the current caseload is larger than it was at that same point in the previous two years.
  • IHS has developed an Access Database for the FOIA program and continues to modify and update the database to create greater efficiency in the processing of FOIA requests.
  • OIG annually reviews its database and processes to ensure efficiency in processing requests.

4. The FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 requires additional notification to requesters about the services provided by the agency’s FOIA Public Liaison. Please provide an estimate of the number of times requesters sought assistance from your agency’s FOIA Public Liaison during FY 2017 (please provide a total number or an estimate of the number).

There is a FOIA Public Liaison at each of the HHS FOIA Service Centers, as the Department’s administration of FOIA is decentralized. The number of times a FOIA Public Liaison was contacted varied by Service Center; some liaisons were contacted by 10 or fewer requesters, and others received hundreds of inquiries. Some of these contacts were actually inquiries which could have been answered by other FOIA staff members and others were requests for assistance. HHS estimates that approximately 1,500-2,000 inquiries or requests for assistance were made to the HHS FOIA Public Liaisons during FY 2017.

5. Optional Survey Question: If possible, please provide an estimate of the average number of pages that your agency processes for each request. You may provide estimates for each track.

Simple track requests may include 100-200 pages or fewer, while more complex cases may be 50,000 pages or more. The estimated average number of pages processed for each request is approximately 750-1000 pages.

6. If there are any other steps your agency has undertaken to ensure that your FOIA system operates efficiently and effectively, such as improving search processes, eliminating redundancy, etc., please describe them here.

The Department continues to strive to improve its FOIA operations and gain greater efficiencies, as described in the following paragraphs.

  • Last year, the Department successfully transitioned the Program Support Center (PSC) FOIA duties and workforce to the OS FOIA Office, which has provided a more integrated and streamlined service model throughout FY 2017 by combining the two existing FOIA offices. This integrated leadership structure has improved workload allocation, eliminated process redundancies. Additionally, OS FOIA Office hired two outside contractors to assist in closing backlogged FOIA Appeals.
  • CMS explored the technology of a PST converter tool to convert records to pdf format, which would speed up the processing of email records, and improve efficiency and timeliness to respond to requests for formal written correspondence records. This process also involves first running a report of all the correspondence records that fall within the scope of the request, and then contacting the requester to clarify the records being sought, resulting in faster processing time.
  • FDA senior FOIA processionals in each component meet monthly to discuss training, policy issues, case law, technology, and other issues relevant to efficient and accurate processing of FOIA requests.
  • HRSA utilizes e-discovery software to conduct agency-wide searches. This has improved search time and response time for FOIA requests.
  • IHS continues to modify and update its Access Database to create greater efficiency in the processing of FOIA requests.
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