Section I: FOIA Leadership and Applying the Presumption of Openness

The guiding principle underlying the Attorney General’s FOIA Guidelines is the presumption of openness.  The Guidelines also highlight the importance of agency leadership in ensuring effective FOIA administration.  Please answer the following questions about FOIA leadership at your agency and describe the steps your agency has taken to ensure that the presumption of openness is being applied to all decisions involving the FOIA.

A.  FOIA Leadership

1.  The FOIA requires each agency to designate a Chief FOIA Officer who is a senior official at the Assistant Secretary or equivalent level.  See 5 U.S.C. § 552(j)(1) (2018).  Is your agency’s Chief FOIA Officer at this level? 

Yes. 

2.  Please provide the name and title of your agency’s Chief FOIA Officer. 

Kamara Jones
Acting Agency Chief FOIA Officer
Acting Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

3.  What steps has your agency taken to incorporate FOIA into its core mission? For example, has your agency incorporated FOIA milestones into its strategic plan?

HHS has incorporated FOIA into its strategic activities through continued investments in staffing, contract support, and technology resources, and close monitoring of FOIA process data.  HHS has invested significant resources and prioritized efforts to reduce the Department’s FOIA backlog, to address the recent spike in FOIA litigations, and to improve customer service for our requesters.    

B.  Presumption of Openness

4.  The Attorney General’s 2022 FOIA Guidelines provides that “agencies should confirm in response letters to FOIA requesters that they have considered the foreseeable harm standard when reviewing records and applying FOIA exemptions.” Does your agency provide such confirmation in its response letters?

Nearly every HHS FOIA Office has updated their response letters to indicate that they have considered the foreseeable harm standard when reviewing records and applying FOIA exemptions.  HHS will continue to work in 2023 with its HHS FOIA Requester Service Centers to ensure complete compliance with the Attorney General’s 2022 FOIA Guidelines.

5.  With respect to Glomar responses, please answer the below questions:

a) In addition to tracking the asserted exemption, does your agency specifically track whether a request involved a Glomar response?          

b) If yes, please provide: i. the number of times your agency issued a full or partial Glomar response (separate full and partial if possible);

ii. the number of times a Glomar response was issued by exemption (e.g., Exemption 7(C) –20 times, Exemption 1 –5 times).

c) If your agency does not track the use of Glomar responses, what would your agency need to do to track in the future? If possible, please describe the resources and time involved.

Currently, most HHS FOIA Offices do not have the capability to track Glomar responses.  An exception is the NIH.  For the relevant reporting period, NIH issued two Glomar responses – one under Exemption 4 and one under Exemption 6.  Additionally, it should be noted, that several HHS FOIA Offices rarely issue Glomar responses because of the limited number of requests that they receive for investigatory records.

To track Glomar responses going forward, HHS FOIA Offices that lack this capability will need to work with their tracking system providers to determine whether they can enhance their tracking systems by adding a Glomar-related field.  The addition of a Glomar-related field could take each FOIA Office a few months and would require coordination with tracking system providers.  Some FOIA Offices, such as OIG, have already met with their tracking system providers to add a Glomar-related field.

6. Optional – If there are any other initiatives undertaken by your agency to ensure that the presumption of openness is being applied, please describe them here.

The Office of the Secretary (OS) FOIA Office has provided training to its FOIA and program staff that covered the Attorney General’s 2022 FOIA Guidelines and the presumption of openness.

HHS FOIA Offices apply the foreseeable harm standard and only withholds information when they reasonably foresee that disclosure would harm an interest protected by an exemption or if disclosure is prohibited by law.  When there is doubt, HHS FOIA Offices err on the side of openness.  HHS FOIA Offices also, where appropriate, make discretionary disclosures of information.  Furthermore, when the full disclosure of a record is not possible, HHS FOIA Offices consider whether partial release of information is possible and take reasonable steps to segregate and release nonexempt information.

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