Nine of 16 agencies cut backlogs of FOIA requests

Many federal agencies have reduced backlogs of unprocessed Freedom of Information Act requests since a 2005 executive order urging faster processing, though inconsistent data makes progress hard to track, according to the Government Accountability Office.

In a report released Monday, the congressional auditing agency evaluated how 16 agencies have responded to a December 2005 executive order in which President Bush called for agencies to cut the number of FOIA requests not processed within the 20-day period in which they are usually required to respond.

GAO said nine agencies had cut their backlog; five showed increases and two saw no change.

The largest actual drop came at the Homeland Security Department, which cut its backlog by about 30,000 requests between 2006 and 2007, a decline of 30 percent. The Veterans Affairs Department's backlog fell by 9,550 requests, or 81 percent, in that period.

FOIA backlogs grew at NASA, the Social Security Administration and the State and Education departments. The Defense Department's backlog grew by at least 5,000 requests.

GAO did not evaluate the Housing and Urban Development or Agriculture departments or the General Services Administration because these departments could not assure their data was correct. The CIA did not respond to GAO requests.

GAO said the results show that FOIA improvement plans called for in Bush's executive order "have had a positive effect."

That conclusion differs with a report on FOIA backlogs released last month by the National Security Archive, which is affiliated with George Washington University. In a study based on data from all federal agencies, the nonprofit said agencies have cut FOIA backlogs by 2 percent since 2005.

Bush's order has had little impact because it was not accompanied by new funding or penalties to improve processing, the report said.

Meredith Fuchs, general counsel for the National Security Archive, said that GAO's findings are mostly consistent with her group's study. "Though they have some rosy paragraphs, I don't think [the GAO report] shows much progress," Fuchs said.

GAO said that because agencies use differing metrics to judge the size of their FOIA backlogs, "it was not possible to make a full assessment of governmentwide progress." The report calls for the Justice Department to clarify how agencies measure FOIA processing. A bill amending FOIA that was signed late last year by the president also requires agencies to improve tracking of overdue requests.

GAO's report criticizes the Justice Department's Criminal Division, which gave low priority to FOIA requests that had been open for more than six years because officials believed the statute of limitations no longer made these unresolved cases subject to litigation.

"Although the goal of avoiding litigation is reasonable, the lack of priority given to the division's oldest case files is inconsistent" with the department's expressed emphasis, GAO said.

The report said the number of annual FOIA requests has increased from about 2.3 million in 2002 to more than 20 million in 2006, though almost all of the increase came in requests to the Social Security Administration for records.