FOIA Backlogs and Spending Up

For Immediate Release: Aug. 8, 2007

Contact:

Pete Weitzel
Coordinator
Coalition of Journalists for Open Government
(SPJ is a member of the Coalition)
pweitzel@cjog.net
703-807-2100
www.cjog.net

Public Waits Longer for Less Information from Federal Agencies; Coalition Analysis Finds FOIA Backlogs and Spending Up

Washington — A new analysis of Freedom of Information Act performance reports by the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government shows that service continues to frustrate requesters, despite a presidential directive ordering agencies to improve agency response and a Justice Department assessment that said changes made so far are encouraging.

"Why the disparity? It's simple: the Justice report looked how agencies are doing relative to self-established bureaucratic goals. Our analysis takes agencies' own FOIA reports and measures how they're doing in delivering information to the public," explained Pete Weitzel, Coalition coordinator. "What we're seeing is that all the basic indicators of efficiency — backlog, waiting time, requests granted — are still doing poorly. The only place where we saw numbers go up was in the amount of taxpayers' dollars spent."

The Coalition report, “Still Waiting After All These Years,” examined agency data from 1998, when performance information was first made public, through the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2006, the most recent available. Records were collected from 30 federal departments and agencies that handle the majority of  FOIA requests.  Then, the performance was compared for the 26 agencies that primarily handle third-party requests.

Among the Coalition's findings were:

•    The overall backlog rose 26 percent over 2005’s record high. By the end of 2006, the 26 agencies had a combined backlog of 39 percent. That means that almost two out of every five requests filed did not get into the processing hopper before the year ended. The FOIA backlog has increased 200 percent since agencies began reporting in 1998. It nearly doubled in the past two years.

•    In 2006, the 26 agencies received the fewest requests since reporting began in 1998. The number of requests received was down 6 percent in the past year and 10 percent in the past two years. The backlog kept growing because the agencies have processed fewer requests in each succeeding year since 2003.

•    Only five of the 26 agencies in 1998 showed a median response time for "simple" requests that exceeded the 20 working-day statutory deadline. Last year, 14 of the agencies went past the deadline. In the handling of "complex" requests, only one of the 19 agencies that missed the 20-day deadline in 2005 was able to bring its response time in line in 2006. That was the Defense Department.

•    The number of denials increased 10 percent in 2006 and the number of full grants, in which the requester got all the information sought, hit an all-time low. The number of partial grants, in which requesters got at least some information, did increase, however, pushing the overall percentage of requests granted to 64 percent, a single percentage point higher than 2005. However, the net effect of the slowdown in processing and the increased stinginess means that in 2006, 217,720 fewer requesters got full grants than in 1998, and 183,453 fewer requesters got a grant of any kind.

•    The cost of processing FOIA requests is up 40 percent since 1998, even though agencies are processing 20 percent fewer requests and the number of FOIA workers in 2006 is 10 percent below 1998 levels — despite a 14 percent increase in the past year.

•    The typical FOIA worker handled 136 requests a year in 1998. That had risen to 143 requests in 2005 but fell to 120 last year.

•    The average cost of handling a request was $294 in 1998; by 2005 it had increased to $494, and institutional inflation did not stop then. The 2006 cost for each request processed: $526.

•    Agencies have made creative use of the nine FOIA exemptions to deny requests for information. Overall, the number of exemptions cited to support the withholding of information has increased 83 percent since 1998, even as the number of requests processed fell 20 percent.

Comparative tables and a year-by-year accounting of FOIA data from 1998-2006, shown by category and agency, are on the Coalition's Web site at www.cjog.net.