FREEDOM OF 

INFORMATION ACT

Office of Government 

Information Services 

Has Begun 

Implementing Its 

Responsibilities, but 

Further Actions Are 

Needed

Report to the Committee on 

Oversight and Government Reform,

House of Representatives

September 2013

GAO-13-650

United States Government Accountability Office
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-13-650, a report to the 

Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform, House of Representatives

September 2013

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT

Office of Government Information Services Has 

Begun Implementing Its Responsibilities, but 

Further Actions Are Needed

Why GAO Did This Study

The OPEN Government Act of 2007

amended FOIA and established OGIS 

within the National Archives and 

Records Administration to provide 

oversight and assistance to federal 

agencies in implementing FOIA. To 

evaluate how effectively the office is 

meeting its responsibilities, GAO 

assessed the actions that the office 

has taken to (1) implement its 

responsibilities for reviewing agencies’ 

policies, procedures, and compliance 

with FOIA; (2) mediate disputes 

between FOIA requesters and federal 

agencies; and (3) recommend policy 

changes to Congress and the 

President and develop and issue

guidance and best practices to improve 

the administration of FOIA. To do so, 

GAO analyzed documents describing 

the office’s plans and activities for 

conducting reviews, mediation case 

files, and documents describing its 

policy recommendations made to 

Congress and the President and its 

guidance and best practices. GAO also 

interviewed officials at relevant 

agencies.

What GAO Recommends

GAO is recommending that OGIS fulfill 

its statutory responsibilities by

establishing (1) a time frame for 

completing and implementing a 

methodology for proactively reviewing

agencies’ policies, procedures, and 

compliance with FOIA requirements

and (2) measures and goals for its 

mediation services. In written 

comments on a draft of the report, the 

National Archives and Records 

Administration concurred with the 

recommendations.

What GAO Found

Since its establishment in 2009, the Office of Government Information Services 

(OGIS) has provided comments on proposed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

regulations for 18 of 99 federal agencies that administer FOIA, as well as a 

number of Privacy Act system of records notices. While OGIS has suggested 

improvements to a number of those regulations and notices, it has not performed 

the reviews of regulations and notices in a proactive, comprehensive manner,

and has not conducted any reviews of agencies’ compliance with the law. In 

addition, since it was established 4 years ago, the office has not developed a 

methodology for conducting reviews of agencies’ FOIA policies and procedures, 

or for compliance with FOIA requirements. OGIS is in the early stages of 

developing a methodology for conducting such reviews, but has not established a 

time frame for completion. Until OGIS establishes a methodology and time frame 

for proactively reviewing agencies’ FOIA policies, procedures, and compliance, 

the office will not be positioned to effectively execute its responsibilities as 

required by the act. 

OGIS is providing mediation services and is resolving disputes that might 

otherwise go unresolved or lead to litigation, although not all of its efforts have 

been successful. OGIS has achieved positive results for about two-thirds of the 

cases reviewed by GAO where mediation services were provided. For example, 

in several cases, one or both parties took action or modified their position after 

OGIS’s intervention. Nevertheless, the office lacks quantifiable goals and 

measures for its mediation activities, as required by law. For example, it does not 

have goals to measure timeliness or success. Without these important 

management tools, OGIS cannot determine how effectively its mediation services 

are in improving the implementation of FOIA. 

Since April 2012, OGIS has issued nine recommendations to Congress and the 

President aimed at improving the administration of FOIA. These 

recommendations focus on areas where OGIS could help agencies improve their 

FOIA processes as well as areas where its role could be made more effective. 

These recommendations were based on its ongoing work with federal agencies 

and with members of the public. In addition, while not required to issue guidance 

or best practices, the office collects best practices for improving FOIA processing 

from several sources, including its reviews of agencies’ annual FOIA reports and 

mediation case files, as well as anecdotally from persons involved in mediation

cases facilitated by the office. OGIS shares these best practices in its annual 

reports and on its website and blog.

View GAO-13-650. For more information, 

contact Valerie C. Melvin at (202) 512-6304 or 

melvinv@gao.gov.
Page i GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

Letter 1

Background 3

OGIS Has Assisted Agencies, but Has Not Proactively Reviewed 

Agencies’ FOIA Policies, Procedures, and Compliance 8

OGIS Is Mediating Disputes, but Lacks Goals and Metrics for 

Measuring Timeliness and Success 11

OGIS Has Made Recommendations and Issued Best Practices for 

Improving the Administration of FOIA 16

Conclusions 21

Recommendations 21

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 22

Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 23

Appendix II Comments from the National Archives and Records 

Administration 26

Appendix III GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 27

Table

Table 1: Examples of OGIS Best Practices for Improving Agencies’ 

Implementation of FOIA 20

Figure

Figure 1: Organizational Chart Depicting OGIS within NARA 5

Contents
Page ii GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

Abbreviations

FOIA Freedom of Information Act

Justice Department of Justice

OGIS Office of Government Information Services

OMB Office of Management and Budget

NARA National Archives and Records Administration

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

United States. The published product may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety 

without further permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain 

copyrighted images or other material, permission from the copyright holder may be 

necessary if you wish to reproduce this material separately.
Page 1 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

441 G St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20548

September 10, 2013

The Honorable Darrell E. Issa

Chairman

The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings

Ranking Member

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

House of Representatives

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)1 requires federal agencies to 

provide the public with access to government records and information on 

the basis of the principles of openness and accountability in government. 

In this regard, each year hundreds of thousands of FOIA requests are 

made to federal agencies––with the information released in response to 

these requests contributing to the disclosure of government waste, fraud, 

and abuse, as well as other conditions, such as unsafe consumer 

products and harmful drugs. However, keeping up with this demand for 

information and responding in a timely manner has been challenging for 

federal agencies. Congress, in turn, has amended the act to guide 

agencies in the administration of their FOIA operations. One such 

enactment––the OPEN Government Act of 20072

Given the important role that OGIS has been assigned, we were 

requested to evaluate how effectively the office is meeting its 

responsibilities. In particular, our objectives were to assess the actions 

that the office has taken to (1) review agencies’ FOIA policies, 

procedures, and compliance; (2) mediate disputes between FOIA 

––established the Office 

of Government Information Services (OGIS) within the National Archives 

and Records Administration (NARA) to oversee and assist agencies in 

implementing FOIA. Toward this end, the office was charged with 

reviewing federal agencies’ FOIA policies and procedures and their 

compliance with FOIA, and recommending policy changes to Congress 

and the President to improve the administration of FOIA. Additionally, 

OGIS was required to offer mediation services to resolve disputes 

between FOIA requesters and agencies.

 1

5 U.S.C. § 552.

2

The Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National (OPEN) Government Act of 2007, 

Pub. L. No. 110-175 (Dec. 31, 2007).
Page 2 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

requesters and federal agencies; and (3) recommend policy changes to 

Congress and the President, and develop and issue guidance and best 

practices to agencies aimed at improving the administration of FOIA.

To assess the actions that OGIS has taken to review federal agencies’

FOIA policies, procedures, and compliance, we analyzed available 

documentation describing the office’s plans and activities for conducting 

agency reviews. This included OGIS’s annual reports and quarterly 

progress reports that summarized its plans and activities. We also 

analyzed the office’s comments on proposed agency regulations, Privacy 

Act of 19743 system of records notices,4 and correspondence. In 

analyzing OGIS’s plans for conducting agency reviews, we applied 

program evaluation guidance5

To assess OGIS’s actions in mediating disputes between FOIA 

requesters and federal agencies, we reviewed, among other things, laws 

addressing federal mediation activities, published literature on mediation, 

and the office’s documented procedures for mediating disputes. Using 

OGIS’s case tracking system, we selected and reviewed the 44 cases

that focuses on assessing the 

effectiveness of program operations and results.

6

 3

5 U.S.C. § 552a. 

that were initiated in fiscal year 2012 and were characterized by the office 

as involving facilitation, a type of mediation. We also reviewed the 

corresponding paper files documenting the actions taken and the results 

of mediation activities for these cases. To determine the reliability of the 

data in the system, we performed steps to ensure the data provided were 

valid and reviewed how data are entered and validated. We tested 

duplicate records, missing values, and out-of-range values. We found the 

data sources to be sufficiently reliable for our purposes.

4

The Privacy Act of 1974 requires agencies to publish system of records notices in the 

Federal Register to describe holdings of personal information in covered system of 

records. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(4).

5

GAO, Designing Evaluations: 2012 Revision, GAO-12-208G (Washington, D.C.: January

2012).

6

While 46 cases were initiated in 2012, we included 44 cases in our review. One case was 

omitted because it involved only OGIS and agency officials, and a second was omitted 

because the case was not included in the data OGIS provided from which we made our 

selection. 
Page 3 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

To assess the office’s actions to recommend policy changes to Congress 

and the President, we analyzed its documents describing policy

recommendations that were made to Congress and the President. In 

addition, we reviewed the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) 

written responses describing its reviews of OGIS’s policy 

recommendations and any applicable OMB guidance, such as the 

Circular A-197

We conducted this performance audit from October 2012 through 

September 2013 in accordance with generally accepted government 

auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the 

audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable 

basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We 

believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. Appendix I 

contains a more detailed discussion of our objectives, scope, and 

methodology.

and we interviewed officials from OMB’s Office of General 

Counsel. In addition, to assess OGIS’s actions to develop and issue 

guidance and best practices to federal agencies, we analyzed 

documentation on OGIS’s agency best practices, case studies, and the 

office’s suggestions regarding FOIA implementation. We supplemented 

our analyses with interviews of NARA and OGIS officials.

FOIA established a legal right of access to government information on the 

basis of the principles of openness and accountability in government. 

Prior to passage of the act in 1966, the government required an individual 

or entity to demonstrate a “need to know” before being granted the right 

to examine a federal record. FOIA established a “right to know” standard, 

under which an individual or entity could receive access to information 

held by a federal agency without demonstrating a need or reason. The 

“right to know” standard shifted the burden of proof from the individual or 

entity to the government agency holding the information and required the 

agency to provide proper justification when denying a request for access.

Any person, with a few exceptions, can file a FOIA request, including 

foreign nationals, corporations, and organizations. For example, a foreign 

 7

Office of Management and Budget, Legislative Coordination and Clearance, Circular No. 

A-19, (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 20, 1979).

Background
Page 4 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

national can request his or her alien file, and a commercial requester, 

which can include data brokers that file a request on behalf of others, may 

request, among other things, a copy of a government contract or grant 

proposal. In response, the agency holding the desired record is required 

to provide it to the requester (unless the record falls within a permitted 

exemption).8

While FOIA has helped improve public access to government information 

and has been a positive step toward providing more openness in 

government, a March 12, 2007, House committee report accompanying 

the OPEN Government Act

Generally, FOIA allows agencies to collect a fee for 

searching and duplicating records in connection with responding to a 

request. Apart from providing access to records in response to a request, 

FOIA also requires agencies to disclose certain information by publication 

in the Federal Register or electronically (e.g., on the Internet), or by 

making it available in a physical or electronic reading room.

9 pointed out that agencies receive hundreds 

of thousands of FOIA requests a year, which has led to slow response 

times, increased backlogs, and costly and time-consuming litigation 

between requesters and the government. As such, according to the 

report, FOIA requesters have argued that they would benefit from having 

access to an ombudsman to provide guidance before, or as an alternative 

to, litigation.

To help address the concerns surrounding FOIA implementation, the 

OPEN Government Act,

10

• review policies and procedures that agencies have developed to 

administer FOIA;

among other things, established OGIS within 

NARA to:

• review agency compliance with FOIA requirements;

• recommend policy changes to Congress and the President to improve 

the administration of FOIA; and

 8

Nine specific exemptions can be applied to withhold a requested record, for example, 

classified, confidential commercial, pre-decisional, privacy, and several types of law 

enforcement information. 

9

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Freedom of Information Act 

Amendments of 2007, House Rep. No. 110-45 (2007).

10Pub. L. No. 110-175 (Dec. 31, 2007).

OGIS Was Established 

to Help Oversee the 

Administration of FOIA
Page 5 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

• offer mediation services to resolve disputes between individuals or 

entities making FOIA requests and agencies as an non-exclusive 

alternative to litigation.

OGIS was established within NARA, on September 8, 2009. The office 

operated directly under the Archivist of the United States until March 7, 

2011, when it was moved to Agency Services, which operates under the 

authority of the agency’s Chief Operating Officer. According to its charter, 

the mission of Agency Services is to lead NARA’s efforts in servicing the 

ongoing records management needs of federal agencies and to represent 

the public’s interest in the accountability and transparency of these 

records. OGIS is one of five supporting offices under Agency Services, as 

shown on the organization chart in figure 1.

Figure 1: Organizational Chart Depicting OGIS within NARA

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., OGIS is led by a director who 

reports to the Executive of Agency Services. As of August 2013, the 

Director was aided by a deputy director, an attorney advisor, two 

management and program analysts, and a staff assistant—for a total of 

six full-time employees.
Page 6 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

In addition to OGIS, other federal agencies also have responsibility for the 

oversight and administration of FOIA. Specifically, since it was 

established 30 years ago, the Office of Information Policy within the 

Department of Justice (Justice) has been responsible for overseeing the 

administration of FOIA by encouraging compliance, overseeing agencies’

implementation of the OPEN Government Act, and issuing policy 

guidance. As such, the office prepares a comprehensive guide that 

addresses various aspects of the act; conducts a variety of FOIA-related 

training programs for personnel across the government; and uses 

attorneys to serve as counselors that provide FOIA information, advice, 

and guidance to government staff and the public regarding 

implementation of the act. In addition, Justice represents federal agencies 

in lawsuits brought by FOIA requesters. 

According to Justice, as of fiscal year 2012, a total of 99 federal agencies 

had responsibility for implementing FOIA. These agencies process 

requests, publish related regulations, and submit annual reports through 

the heads of their agencies to the Attorney General that include statistics 

on their FOIA processing. Further, the OPEN Government Act gave 

agency chief FOIA officers responsibility for ensuring agencywide 

compliance by monitoring implementation throughout the agency; 

recommending changes in policies, practices, staffing, and funding; and 

reviewing and reporting to agency heads and to Justice on the agency’s 

performance in implementing FOIA. (These reports are referred to as 

chief FOIA officer reports and are in addition to the annual reports that 

agencies also submit to Justice.)

Over the past 6 years, we have issued several reports on federal 

agencies’ implementation of FOIA, including their progress in improving 

FOIA processing and backlog reduction.

• In 2007,11

 11GAO, Freedom of Information Act: Processing Trends Show Importance of Improvement 

Plans, 

we reported on 25 major agencies’ plans for improving 

FOIA processing and noted that most of the plans included goals and 

time tables addressing the areas of improvement emphasized by 

GAO-07-441 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 30, 2007) and Freedom of Information Act: 

Processing Trends Show Importance of Improvement Plans, GAO-07-491T (Washington, 

D.C.: Feb. 14, 2007).

Other Federal Agencies 

Also Have FOIA-Related 

Responsibilities

GAO Has Previously 

Reported on Agencies’

Efforts to Implement FOIA
Page 7 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

Executive Order 13392,12

• In 2008,

which set forth a directive for a citizencentered and results-oriented FOIA. In particular, the order directed 

agencies to provide requesters with courteous and appropriate 

service and ways to learn about the FOIA process, the status of their 

requests, and the public availability of other agency records. The 

order also instructed agencies to process requests efficiently, achieve 

measurable process improvements (including a reduction in the 

backlog of overdue requests), and reform programs that were not 

producing the appropriate results. However, certain agencies had 

omitted goals in areas where they were already considered to be 

strong. We noted that all the plans focused on making measurable 

improvements and formed a reasonable basis for carrying out the 

goals of the executive order, although the details in a few plans could 

be improved. Thus, among other things, we recommended that 

selected agencies strengthen their improvement plans. The agencies 

generally agreed with our recommendations and took actions to 

address them.

13

• More recently, in July 2012,

we reported that, following the emphasis on backlog 

reduction in the executive order and agency improvement plans, 

many agencies had shown progress in decreasing their backlog of 

overdue requests. However, we identified several factors that 

contributed to the requests remaining open and recommended that, 

among other things, Justice provide additional guidance to agencies 

on tracking and reporting overdue requests and planning to meet 

future backlog goals. In response to our recommendation, Justice’s 

Office of Information Policy developed guidance on tracking and 

reporting backlogged requests.

14

 12Executive Order 13392, Improving Agency Disclosure of Information (Washington, D.C.: 

Dec. 14, 2005).

we reported that four agencies with 

large backlogs had taken actions to decrease their backlogs, reduce

their use of exemptions, and make their FOIA records available to the 

public by electronic means. We noted, however, that not all agency 

components were ensuring that frequently requested records were 

being made available online. Also, we reported that agencies were not 

always taking advantage of best practices for FOIA processing by, for 

13GAO, Freedom of Information Act: Agencies Are Making Progress in Reducing Backlog, 

but Additional Guidance Is Needed, GAO-08-344 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 14, 2008).

14GAO, Freedom of Information Act: Additional Actions Can Strengthen Agency Efforts to 

Improve Management, GAO-12-828 (Washington, D.C.: July 2012).
Page 8 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

example, using a single tracking system and providing requesters with 

the ability to track the status of their requests online. We 

recommended that the agencies improve the management of their 

FOIA programs by ensuring that actions were taken to reduce 

backlogs and the use of exemptions, improve FOIA libraries, and

implement technology. Officials from the four agencies agreed or 

generally agreed with the recommendations.

OGIS has engaged in several activities that, according to its officials, 

were intended to respond to the OPEN Government Act requirement that 

it review federal agencies’ FOIA policies, procedures, and compliance. 

Specifically, OGIS has engaged in tasks such as making suggestions for 

improving the clarity and readability of agencies’ proposed FOIA 

regulations and notices and offering general observations regarding 

agencies’ correspondence. For example, in 2010 and 2011, the office 

reviewed the Federal Register15

• provide requesters with an estimated amount of fees, including a 

breakdown of the fees for the time staff devote to searching, 

reviewing, and/or duplicating records for a FOIA request;

to identify when agencies had submitted 

FOIA regulations for public comment and then offered responses to the 

requests for comments on the proposed regulations. In this regard, OGIS 

offered comments on improving the contents of regulations that had been 

proposed by 18 agencies. Among the suggestions that it offered to one or 

more of these agencies were that they:

• add a statement to clarify the difference between a third-party request 

made under FOIA and a first-party request made under the Privacy 

Act;

• notify requesters in writing when their requests have been referred to 

another agency, and include the part of the request that has been 

referred and the name of the FOIA contact in that agency; and

• recognize the important statutory role of the FOIA Public Liaison in 

reducing delays, increasing transparency, and understanding the 

status of requests.

 15Published by NARA, the Federal Register is the federal government’s official daily 

publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of federal agencies and organizations, 

as well as executive orders and other presidential documents. 

OGIS Has Assisted 

Agencies, but Has Not 

Proactively Reviewed 

Agencies’ FOIA 

Policies, Procedures, 

and Compliance
Page 9 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

In addition, as part of its actions taken to review policies and procedures, 

in 2011 and 2012 the office responded to agencies’ requests in the 

Federal Register for public comments on Privacy Act system of records 

notices. The office commented on six such requests during these 2 years. 

For example, the office suggested that agencies include model language 

in their system of records notices that would allow OGIS to share 

information with the affected agency as a permitted disclosure under the 

Privacy Act. According to the officials, without the model language, OGIS 

would be required to obtain written consent from each requester prior to 

being able to access their records when mediating a dispute.

Further, through various means (for example, FOIA roundtable meetings, 

website, and blog) in 2012 and 2013, OGIS invited agencies to submit 

FOIA correspondence, such as acknowledgment and close-out letters, for 

its review. According to OGIS, one agency responded to these invitations 

and the office, in turn, made suggestions aimed at improving the clarity 

and readability of the agency’s correspondence. Specifically, OGIS 

provided comments to the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency on a 

template for its close-out letter that clarified the legal requirements to 

protect from disclosure, information on the location of classified military 

systems personnel, and information on contractor proposals. Beyond this 

activity, the office offered Dispute Resolution Skills training to agencies, 

including the Departments of State, Homeland Security, and Health and 

Human Services, and, as part of the training, provided instruction on 

improving agency correspondence to requesters.

Nevertheless, while OGIS has engaged in these specific activities, none 

was a proactive, comprehensive evaluation of federal agencies’ FOIA 

policies and procedures. Moreover, the office has not conducted any 

reviews of agencies’ compliance with FOIA. Rather, the office has 

generally worked in an ad hoc, reactive manner to respond to Federal 

Register proposals put forth by agencies or to seek opportunities to 

comment or provide training on correspondence and documentation other 

than FOIA policies and procedures. Furthermore, the activities that it has 

undertaken have been limited to engaging with only a small fraction of the 

99 federal agencies that, according to Justice, have responsibility for 

implementing FOIA. Similarly, while the office reported that it has 

reviewed agencies’ annual FOIA reports and Chief FOIA Officer reports 

from Justice’s Office of Information Policy website to identify best 

practices on improving FOIA processing, and has made general 

observations about agencies’ policies, procedures, and compliance with 

FOIA through the office’s mediation case work, these actions were not 
Page 10 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

undertaken as part of a specific review of agencies’ compliance with 

FOIA, as required by the OPEN Government Act.

A key factor contributing to the absence of proactive and comprehensive 

reviews of federal agencies’ FOIA policies, procedures, and compliance 

by OGIS is that the office has not established a structured methodology 

for conducting such reviews. Our work has determined that developing a 

methodology is critical to conducting quality, credible, and useful reviews. 

Our evaluation guidance states that a structured methodology should 

define, among other things, the scope, schedule, criteria, and evaluation 

questions for conducting the reviews.16

The Director of OGIS acknowledged the limitations of the reviews that 

had been conducted, stating that the office had prioritized its resources to 

favor mediation activities. In this regard, the Director stated that the staff 

tasked with providing mediation services should function as neutral third 

parties and be independent from staff tasked with reviewing agencies’

FOIA policies, procedures, and compliance. However, the Director said 

that, given the small number of staff assigned to OGIS, the office has not 

been able to establish a separate team of reviewers. OGIS officials added 

that the office is in the early stages of drafting a methodology for 

conducting the reviews, but that a time frame for when the methodology 

will be completed has not been established. Further, while Agency 

Services has identified a need for additional staff to support OGIS in 

implementing its mission, it has not established a plan that addresses 

how the office intends to staff the FOIA reviews. Industry practices stress 

the importance of analyzing workforce needs and developing a plan of 

action for addressing those needs. Moreover, in September 2012, a 

report issued by the Office of Inspector General at NARA concluded that 

while OGIS was currently able to meet its mission, additional resources 

would allow the office to have a more robust program for conducting the 

OGIS had not defined the scope 

of work for its reviews, to include information on which specific agencies it 

will review, (such as the agencies that receive the largest number of FOIA 

requests) and when it will do so. In addition, the office had not established 

the criteria against which the agencies’ policies, procedures, and 

compliance with FOIA requirements would be assessed; and it had not 

developed evaluation questions to be used in conducting the reviews.

 16GAO, Designing Evaluations: 2012 Revision, GAO-12-208G (Washington, D.C.: January

2012).
Page 11 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

reviews.17

Until OGIS completes a methodology, and defines the resources needed 

to accomplish the requirements of the office as the NARA Inspector 

General has recommended, the office will not be positioned to effectively 

execute the responsibilities envisioned for it in assisting with this 

important aspect of FOIA implementation.

The Office of Inspector General recommended that the Director 

of OGIS, through the budget process, define resources necessary to 

better accomplish the office’s statutory requirement. As of early August 

2013, however, OGIS had not yet implemented this recommendation.

In response to the OPEN Government Act requirement that it offer 

mediation services to resolve disputes between FOIA requesters and 

agencies as a non-exclusive alternative to litigation, OGIS defines two 

types of mediation services that it provides to address requests for 

assistance:18

• Facilitation: A type of mediation in which an OGIS staff member 

facilitates communication between the requester and the agency, 

helping the parties to reach a mutually agreeable solution without the 

perceived formality or cost of mediation.

• Ombuds services: Advice and services (other than mediation) 

offered in response to complaints that the office receives. Ombuds 

services do not address the substance of a dispute (such as the 

exemptions taken), but rather, the mechanics of a dispute (such as 

the status of a delayed request).

OGIS has a documented process for handling the requests that it 

receives. Specifically, when a request is received—by phone, e-mail, fax, 

or electronically through its website—a case file is opened and assigned 

a tracking number in an automated case management system. Once a 

case has been opened, the office goes through a fact-finding process to 

determine what services are called for, such as, helping the parties 

exchange information or suggesting options for resolution. For each case, 

 17Office of Inspector General, National Archives and Records Administration, Audit of 

NARA’s Office of Government Information Services (September 2012). 

18OGIS also handles what it calls “quick hits”—requests for assistance that can be 

answered immediately—such as how to file a FOIA request or an appeal.

OGIS Is Mediating 

Disputes, but Lacks 

Goals and Metrics for 

Measuring Timeliness 

and Success
Page 12 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

further actions taken by OGIS and the other parties involved, as well as 

any agreements reached, are recorded in the case management system.

During fiscal year 2012, OGIS accepted 855 requests for assistance: 46 

involved facilitation or both facilitation/ombuds services, and 239 involved 

only ombuds services. Of the remaining requests, 498 were classified by 

OGIS as a “quick hit”19

Of the 44 facilitation and facilitation/ombuds services cases that OGIS 

initiated in 2012,

and 72 were classified as miscellaneous (for 

example, “administrative closure,” “no direct action requested,” or 

“request withdrawn.”)

20

• One or both parties took action or modified their position after 

OGIS’s intervention. For example, a requester conducting family 

genealogy research requested from the Social Security 

Administration, a copy of a Social Security form pertaining to a family 

member. In response, the agency sent the form to the requester, but 

the subject’s parents’ names had been redacted—blacked out—

because the Social Security Administration does not reveal 

information about a living person and, given their dates of birth, had 

concluded that the parents might still be alive. The requester filed an 

appeal and provided death certificates for the parents, but the appeal 

was denied. An OGIS mediator subsequently contacted a Social 

Security Administration official on the requester’s behalf to discuss the 

denial. After reexamining the case, the agency agreed to send an 

unredacted document to the requester.

the office provided mediation for 30. (Most of the 

remaining 14 were cases that OGIS did not mediate because it agreed 

with the agency’s decision on the FOIA request.) Further, among the 

cases that were mediated, we determined that 22 had a positive result, as 

defined by one or more of the following three actions:

 19A quick hit is not considered to be a case, but is entered into the case management 

system. It does not involve mediation services but is a request for assistance that can be 

answered immediately, such as a question about how to file a FOIA request or whom to 

contact at an agency to get information about a request.

20While 46 cases were initiated in 2012, we included 44 cases in our review. One case 

was omitted because it involved only OGIS and agency officials, and a second was 

omitted because the case was not included in the data OGIS provided from which we 

made our selection.
Page 13 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

• One or both parties indicated increased satisfaction with the 

outcome of the FOIA process as a result of OGIS’s mediation. For 

example, a representative of a trade organization, who had requested 

contract data from the Department of Homeland Security, had 

received only part of the information requested. The agency withheld 

substantial information under a FOIA exemption protecting trade 

secrets. The requester subsequently contacted OGIS, and a mediator 

contacted the agency’s appeals officer and discussed the relevant 

case law. In response to this action, the agency reconsidered its 

decision and provided the information with only minimal redactions. 

The customer noted that she was “extremely happy with the results of 

the mediation.”

• The issue in dispute was clarified, addressed, or resolved after 

OGIS intervened. For example, a requester asked the Securities and 

Exchange Commission for all its files of a certain type and later asked 

OGIS for help because of a perceived delay in the agency’s response. 

A mediator then contacted an official at the agency, who explained 

that the requested files were difficult to retrieve because some were 

paper files that were not indexed and were geographically dispersed. 

The mediator explained this to the requester, who was initially 

unwilling to compromise but was open to an OGIS-facilitated 

discussion with the agency. The agency agreed, and OGIS 

subsequently facilitated a teleconference between the requester and 

the agency, during which the two parties agreed that the requester 

would file a narrower request that the agency could fill promptly.

Overall, among these 22 cases, 9 involved a denial, in which an agency 

declined to release the requested records; 7 involved a delay, in which a 

requester believed the agency was taking too much time to fill a request; 

and 3 involved fees, where a requester believed the amount being 

charged was excessive or that a fee waiver was applicable.21

 21Agencies may charge fees for search and copying, but there are exceptions. For 

example, news media pay reduced or no fees. For all requesters, fees may be waived if 

disclosure of the information is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute 

significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government and 

is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester.

The other 3 

cases involved: a dispute over whether an appeal had been submitted in 

a timely manner, a customer disputing that an agency had not found 

responsive records, and a requester wanting results in a different format.
Page 14 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

Also, among the cases that OGIS mediated, we determined that 8 did not 

have a positive result, as explained by the following examples:

• In four cases, OGIS provided mediation services, but the agency did 

not change its position on refusing to provide the requested 

information. In one case, for example, the agency did not change its 

position that the requester needed to provide a waiver or proof of 

death for the subject of the request in order for the agency to process 

the request. In another example, the agency stood by its decision to 

refer the requester to a publicly available document.

• In one case, the agency, after its initial meeting with OGIS and the 

requester, was unwilling to continue to meet on matters related to the 

FOIA request.

• In one case, OGIS held discussions regarding the agency not granting 

the requester free search time as required by FOIA and OMB’s 

guidance. The agency did not change its position and the requester 

pursued litigation regarding the matter.

• In the remaining two cases, OGIS confirmed that the information the 

requesters were seeking was either exempt from disclosure, or the 

record did not exist. For example, in one of these cases, the requester 

had sought a list of active Internal Revenue Service tax-exempt cases 

in litigation, but had received a “no records” response from the 

agency. As part of its mediation efforts, OGIS confirmed that the 

agency did not keep the requested information in any of its records.

Of the 14 cases where mediation was not provided, 11 were cases where 

OGIS agreed with the agency’s decision to deny a request. For example, 

in one of the cases, a prison inmate requested a copy of the Bureau of 

Prisons Correctional Services Manual, which addresses the operations of 

federal prisons. The bureau withheld the manual under a law enforcement 

exemption, stating that, while there may have been a public interest in the 

material, that interest did not outweigh the need to keep order in the 

prison system and avoid inmates using the information to their advantage. 

The requester then contacted OGIS, and the office responded that the 

agency’s actions had been consistent with FOIA law and policy and 

declined to mediate. In another instance, a case was not mediated 

because the agency declined to cooperate with OGIS. Further, for the 

remaining 2 cases, OGIS ultimately determined that they were ones in 

which mediation was not needed. For example, to resolve one of the 

cases, OGIS only needed to explain an agency letter to a requester.

Although it has taken actions to resolve disputes—in many cases having 

positive results through mediation—the office lacks performance 
Page 15 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

measures and goals needed to gauge the overall success of its mediation 

services. The Government Performance and Results Act Modernization 

Act of 201022

However, consistent with its fiscal year 2013 annual report, in which the 

office states that it has no formal metrics for measuring success, OGIS 

has not developed measures and goals for its mediation services. While 

its case management system can track the length of time required to 

handle a particular case, the office currently has no specific goals related 

to timeliness in handling requests for assistance. In this regard, in fiscal 

year 2012, the office had a timeliness goal, derived from NARA’s overall

performance plan, of closing cases within 34 working days. However, 

according to the officials, this goal was dropped because it was not based 

on the office’s actual experience in handling the cases.

requires NARA, like all agencies, to develop an annual 

performance plan that includes performance goals for its program 

activities and accompanying performance measures, including timeliness 

and results-based measures. According to the act, the performance goals 

should be in a quantifiable and measurable form to define the level of 

performance to be achieved for program activities each year. Measuring 

performance allows an agency to track the progress it is making toward 

goals and gives managers crucial information on which to base their 

organizational and management decisions. Leading organizations 

recognize that performance measures can create powerful incentives to 

influence organizational and individual behavior.

23

OGIS also has no measures or goals pertaining to the results of its 

mediation cases. For example, it has not established criteria for 

determining what constitutes success in a case or a goal for what 

percentage of its cases should have a successful result. OGIS’s Director 

said that the office is aware of the need for such measures and is making 

efforts to meet the need. The Director told us that OGIS has engaged a 

consultant to help review its case management system, identify reasons 

for differing case closure times, and help develop more measurable 

milestones. However, OGIS had not implemented measures as of midAugust 2013. Further, the office has begun using an online questionnaire 

where its customers can provide anonymous feedback on their 

 22Pub. L. No. 111-352, (Jan. 4, 2011), 124 Stat. 3866. 

23In fact, OGIS reports that its cases were open an average of 89.5 days in fiscal year 

2012.
Page 16 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

experiences with OGIS and its staff. While this questionnaire may be

useful if enough responses are received,24 its value as a voluntary, 

Web-based survey is limited: its respondents are self-selected, responses 

are anonymous, and comments cannot be linked to specific cases or 

contexts, thus limiting their usefulness. Until OGIS establishes 

quantifiable goals and measures of success for its mediation services, the 

office will not be positioned to determine how effectively it is performing 

mediation and contributing to the resolution of cases that might otherwise 

have resulted in potentially costly litigation or gone unresolved.

As required by the OPEN Government Act, OGIS has made 

recommendations to Congress and the President aimed at improving the 

administration of FOIA. These recommendations have largely focused on 

improving the internal coordination of government FOIA operations and 

areas where OGIS’s role could be made more effective. In addition, while 

it has not issued specific guidance on FOIA implementation, OGIS has 

collected best practices for improving FOIA processing for federal 

agencies.

Altogether, OGIS has made nine recommendations aimed at improving 

the FOIA process––five in 2012 and four in 2013. Seven of the 

recommendations were specific to actions that the office believed it 

should take (in certain cases in conjunction with agency partners and 

other stakeholders), while two of the recommendations focused on 

actions to be taken by other federal agencies.

Specifically, OGIS recommended to Congress and the President actions 

that it had either taken or was planning to take to enhance its own role in 

administering FOIA, as follows:

• Work to encourage other departments and agencies to partner with it 

to expand dispute resolution training for their FOIA professionals so 

that they can assist their FOIA colleagues in preventing and resolving 

disputes.

 24OGIS had received only one response in the first 5 months the survey was available.

OGIS Has Made 

Recommendations 

and Issued Best 

Practices for 

Improving the 

Administration 

of FOIA
Page 17 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

• Work with other agencies to consider how the FOIA web portal 

(https://FOIAonline.regulations.gov/),

25

• Facilitate the coordination of interagency communication for 

governmentwide FOIA requests among agencies by serving as the 

central point-of-contact for agencies in sharing information, and also 

for relaying information to requesters as appropriate.

the governmentwide FOIA 

portal, might be useful to them in carrying out their statutory 

responsibilities and use it to accept FOIA requests and allow 

responsive documents to be uploaded and posted for the public.

• Work with stakeholders from both inside and outside government to 

review the issues surrounding FOIA fees and fee waivers, which 

remains a persistent point of contention administratively and in 

litigation.

• Develop, with the Chief Information Officers Council, methods for 

agencies to better handle requesters seeking their own records under 

the Privacy Act to improve how requesters navigate agency 

processes to obtain needed assistance.

• In conjunction with OMB, create a governmentwide Privacy Act 

routine-use procedure to streamline the way in which agencies share

with OGIS information covered by the act.

• Work with agencies to streamline the process of requesting 

immigration-related records because of the increased number of 

requests related to these records.

In addition, OGIS recommended that federal agencies take specific 

actions, as follows:

• Encourage and support the use of dispute resolution in the agency 

FOIA processes to prevent and resolve disputes administratively and 

avoid litigation.

• Remind their staff of the importance of FOIA and recognize FOIA as a 

priority (based on the position that many agency employees may be 

unfamiliar with their own responsibilities under the law).

OGIS officials stated that the recommendations were based on the 

office’s ongoing work with federal agencies and members of the public. 

They acknowledged that the office had not compiled other information 

 25The website offers requesters one place to submit FOIA requests, track their progress, 

communicate with the processing agency, search other requests, access previously 

released responsive documents, and file appeals with participating agencies.
Page 18 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

that would be necessary to recommend substantive revisions to 

underlying FOIA policies or otherwise suggest legislative actions to 

Congress and the President. However, such information potentially could 

have been derived if OGIS had taken steps to conduct more 

comprehensive reviews of agencies’ FOIA policies, procedures, and 

compliance and had established and implemented results-based 

measures for its mediation services.

According to its documentation, OGIS submitted the nine 

recommendations over a 2-year period from February 2011 through 

March 2013. The officials explained that their submission of these 

recommendations followed periods of interagency review as required 

under the process overseen by OMB. Specifically, they explained that 

OGIS had submitted its first two draft recommendations for review in 

accordance with the OMB Circular A-1926

Following discussion on the status of the two recommendations at a 

congressional hearing in March 2012,

on February 16, 2011. These 

initial recommendations focused on developing, with the Chief Information 

Officers Council, methods for agencies to better handle requesters 

seeking their own records under the Privacy Act and in conjunction with 

OMB, creating a governmentwide Privacy Act routine-use procedure. 

Then, over the next 14 months, OMB and NARA had periodic discussions 

regarding the significant number of interagency comments that OMB had 

received on the recommendations.

27

 26OMB Circular A-19, Legislative Coordination and Clearance (Sept. 20, 1979), requires 

federal agencies to submit to OMB for review proposed legislation, testimonies, reports, 

and other documents they intend to submit to Congress. According to the circular, OMB 

performs legislative coordination and clearance functions to (a) assist the President in 

developing a position on legislation, (b) make known the administration’s position on 

legislation for the guidance of the agencies and information of Congress, (c) assure 

appropriate consideration of the views of all affected agencies, and (d) assist the 

President with respect to action on enrolled bills. According to OMB, the length of this 

review varies depending on the comments provided by the agencies.

OGIS submitted three additional 

recommendations to OMB for review. OMB officials said they then worked 

with OGIS to address interagency comments on the three 

recommendations, as well as the initial two recommendations.

27The hearing, entitled “The Freedom of Information Act: Safeguarding Critical 

Infrastructure Information and the Public’s Right to Know,” was held on March13, 2012, by 

the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Page 19 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

After OMB completed its review in mid-April 2012, OGIS informed 

Congress28

In mid-January 2013, OGIS and OMB officials met to discuss a second 

set of potential recommendations that the office intended to submit. The 

office subsequently submitted four recommendations to OMB for Circular 

A-19 review on March 4, 2013. According to OGIS officials, the review of 

these recommendations was completed on March 12, 2013, and the 

recommendations were provided to Congress on March 13, 2013, to 

support a congressional hearing during Sunshine Week.

that its recommendations did not include any substantive 

revisions to the disclosure requirements of FOIA. OGIS officials 

subsequently stated that, as a result of the interagency consultation 

process, OGIS and OMB had agreed that the five recommendations 

could be addressed administratively and did not require any legislative 

action.

29

Although OGIS does not issue specific guidance on FOIA 

implementation,30

 28Letter from the Director of OGIS to Chairman Patrick Leahy and Ranking Member 

Charles Grassley, Senate Judiciary Committee, Apr. 13, 2012.

it collects and shares best practices for improving 

federal agencies’ processing of FOIA requests. According to OMB, best 

practices are the processes, practices, and systems identified in public 

and private organizations that work exceptionally well and are widely 

recognized as being helpful in improving an organization’s performance 

and efficiency in specific areas. Best practices can be based on lessons 

learned from positive experiences or on negative experiences that result 

in an undesirable outcome. In addition, guidance states that the use of 

29Sunshine Week is a national initiative to promote a dialogue about the importance of 

open government and freedom of information. Participants include news media, civic 

groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools, and others interested in the public’s right to access 

to information.

30The OPEN Government Act does not require OGIS to issue guidance. Justice’s Office of 

Information Policy is responsible for developing, coordinating, and implementing policy 

and guidance under a regulation authorizing it to exercise the functions vested in the 

Attorney General by FOIA. 28 C.F.R.0.24.

OGIS Does Not Issue 

Guidance, but 

Disseminates Best 

Practices for Improving 

FOIA Processing
Page 20 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

best practices is a principal component of an organizational culture 

committed to continuous improvement.31

Toward this end, OGIS collects best practices for improving FOIA 

processing from several sources, including its reviews of agencies’

annual FOIA reports and mediation case files, as well as anecdotally from 

persons involved in mediation cases facilitated by the office. OGIS 

publishes best practices related to key FOIA requirements and guidance 

in its annual reports, and on its website (https://ogis.archives.gov/) and 

blog (http://blogs.archives.gov/foiablog/). The website includes a number 

of links describing various best practices specifically for FOIA requestors 

and federal agencies. Table 1 describes examples of the best practices 

OGIS has disseminated.

Table 1: Examples of OGIS Best Practices for Improving Agencies’ Implementation of FOIA

Selected best practice Description

Communications and customer service Agencies should post in plain language information about fees, fee categories, and fee 

waivers.

Once a FOIA request has been received and acknowledged, an agency can continue to 

practice good customer service communication. For example, one approach is to create an 

online system to allow a requester to easily check the status of their request.

Agencies should provide in writing to the requester the tracking number and contact 

information for the FOIA Public Liaison and the FOIA professional assigned to the case as 

quickly as possible.

FOIA database requests Involve the requester early on, particularly if the requester is a database expert. Many are 

willing to share their knowledge with agencies to help move the FOIA process forward. Take 

them up on any offers to share their expertise and consider allowing them to talk directly 

with the IT staff to discuss the best approaches for responding to their request.

Agency FOIA regulations For drafting FOIA regulations, agencies should bring attorneys, FOIA processors, records 

managers, and IT professionals to the table. Each will bring a different perspective—plus, a 

well-organized team can lighten the load for a single person on a tedious but important task.

Contacting requesters Contact with requesters need not always be by mail. Often, it may be more efficient to 

contact the requester by e-mail or by telephone; these messages can be memorialized in 

writing later.

Tracking requests Provide in writing to the requester the tracking number and contact information for the FOIA 

Public Liaison as quickly as possible. 

Source: GAO analysis of OGIS best practices. 

 31Aha, D., Becerra-Fernandez, I., and Weber, R., Categorizing Intelligent Lessons 

Learned Systems, Technical Report AIC-00-005. (Washington, D.C.: Naval Research 

Laboratory, Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence. 2000), 63-67.
Page 21 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

OGIS officials stated that the office updates its blog at least weekly with 

posts addressing best practices, case studies, and where the public and 

federal agencies can engage in discussions about FOIA issues. In 

addition, OGIS uses other mechanisms to improve the administration of 

FOIA, to include presenting training for FOIA professionals; holding 

conferences with the American Society for Access Professionals to share 

best practices; and, at the start of fiscal year 2013, helping to launch the 

FOIA web portal (https://FOIAonline.regulations.gov/).

Since it was established 4 years ago, OGIS has taken actions to 

implement selected legislative responsibilities, although it has fallen short 

in certain areas. Specifically, while the office has suggested 

improvements to a number of agencies’ FOIA regulations and system of 

records notices, it has not completed a methodology for proactively 

reviewing agencies’ policies, procedures, and compliance with FOIA 

requirements and a time frame for doing so. As a mediator between 

requesters and federal agencies, OGIS has resolved cases that might 

have otherwise resulted in litigation. However, while we were able to 

identify instances in which its mediation efforts have had positive results, 

the office’s overall success in mediating cases is difficult to gauge without 

goals and performance measures. On the basis of its reviews of agency 

policy and procedures, and mediation experience, OGIS has made a 

number of recommendations to Congress and the President and shared 

best practices to help agencies improve the administration of FOIA. 

However, addressing the shortfalls that we noted is critical to OGIS 

effectively complying with its role as required by law.

To ensure that OGIS effectively performs its responsibilities under FOIA, 

as amended by the OPEN Government Act, we recommend that the 

Archivist of the United States direct the Executive for Agency Services 

and the Director of OGIS to take the following two actions:

• Establish a time frame for completing and implementing a 

methodology that defines, among other things, the scope, schedule, 

criteria, and evaluation questions for conducting reviews of federal 

agencies’ FOIA policies, procedures, and compliance.

• Establish performance measures and goals for OGIS’s mediation 

services that define success in handling a case and include relevant 

goals for the number of cases handled successfully, as well as goals 

for timely management of cases based on past experience.

Conclusions

Recommendations
Page 22 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

We provided drafts of this report to NARA and OMB for comment. In its 

written comments, which are reprinted in appendix II, NARA expressed 

appreciation for our attention to issues facing OGIS and concurred with 

the two recommendations in the report. NARA also specifically discussed 

actions that it was taking or planned to take related to our second 

recommendation. In particular, the agency stated that OGIS has 

consulted with other mediation and ombudsman offices on how to 

evaluate its services and will continue to do so. NARA added that it has 

been difficult to measure success and that the office’s resolution of a 

dispute is dependent on outside factors that are beyond OGIS’s control, 

such as the willingness of the parties to participate in voluntary mediation 

services. Further, NARA stated that it appreciated our suggestions 

regarding measures for success and would consider these suggestions 

as the office assesses measures for the upcoming fiscal year.

In addition to the aforementioned written comments, we received 

technical comments, via e-mail, from NARA’s Audit Liaison and OMB’s 

Audit Liaison, which we have incorporated, as appropriate.

We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional 

committees; the Archivist of the United States; Executive for Agency 

Services, Director of OGIS, and other interested parties. Copies of this 

report will also be available at no charge on the GAO Web site, at 

http://www.gao.gov.

Should you or your staffs have any questions on the information 

discussed in this report, please contact me at (202) 512-6304 or 

melvinv@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional 

Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. 

GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are listed in 

appendix III.

Valerie C. Melvin

Director, Information Management

and Technology Resources Issues

Agency Comments

and Our Evaluation
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 23 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

Our objectives were to assess the actions that the Office of Government 

Information Services (OGIS) has taken to (1) review agencies’ Freedom 

of Information Act (FOIA) policies, procedures, and compliance, (2) 

mediate disputes between FOIA requesters and federal agencies, and (3) 

recommend policy changes to Congress and the President, and develop 

and issue guidance and best practices to agencies aimed at improving 

the administration of FOIA.

To assess the actions OGIS has taken to review agencies’ FOIA policies, 

procedures, and compliance, we analyzed documentation describing the 

office’s plans and activities for conducting agency FOIA reviews. These 

included the office’s annual reports for fiscal years 2011 through 2013, 

quarterly reports, NARA’s annual performance plan for fiscal years 2011 

through 2013, and the office’s comments on 18 proposed agency 

regulations and six Privacy Act system of records notices. We analyzed 

OGIS’s comments on agency FOIA correspondence, such as closeout 

letters, and training materials on improving agency correspondence to 

requesters. We compared the plans and activities to our program 

evaluation guidance1

To assess the actions that OGIS has taken to mediate disputes between 

requesters and federal agencies, we reviewed the Administrative Dispute 

Resolution Act of 1996; published literature on mediation and alternative 

dispute resolution; and our prior work on alternative dispute resolution. 

We discussed the office’s activities with its officials, reviewed its 

mediation process and definitions, and compared them with third-party 

sources. We attended training on dispute resolution that was presented 

by OGIS. We also reviewed the initial results of the office’s online 

customer survey. We then selected the 44 cases

that focuses on assessing the effectiveness of

program operations and results. We also analyzed OGIS’s comments on 

the proposed agency regulations and compared them to the latest version 

of the agency’s regulations to determine whether they were incorporated.

2

 1

GAO, Designing Evaluations: 2012 Revision, 

that had been initiated 

in 2012 and that were characterized by OGIS as involving facilitation. We 

GAO-12-208G (Washington, D.C.: January

2012) and Program Evaluation: Studies Helped Agencies Measure or Explain Program 

Performance, GAO/GGD-00-204 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 29, 2000).

2

While 46 cases were initiated in 2012, we included 44 cases in our review. We omitted 

two cases: one because it involved only OGIS and the agency’s FOIA staff, and one 

because it was not included in the data that OGIS provided, and from which we made our 

selection. 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 24 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

examined the corresponding paper case files as well as data from the 

office’s automated case tracking system.

We developed criteria, after discussions with OGIS, for verifying whether 

a case involved mediation and for determining the result of the office’s 

mediation efforts. Specifically, we verified that a case was an example of 

mediation if one of the following occurred:

• Other than the initial contact, OGIS had two or more substantive 

contacts with either party.

• The office suggested options for changing a position or decision to 

either party.

• Either party changed a decision or position (e.g. the agency waived 

fees or provided additional documents, or the requester narrowed the 

scope of a request).

We considered the office’s mediation efforts to have had a positive result 

if at least one of the following events occurred:

• One or both parties took some action or modified their position after 

OGIS’s intervention (for example, the agency reduced fees or 

provided further documents).

• One or both parties indicated increased satisfaction with the outcome 

of the FOIA process as the result of the office’s mediation.

• The issue in dispute was clarified, addressed, or resolved.

To determine the reliability of data from OGIS’s case tracking system, we 

performed basic steps to ensure the data provided were valid and 

reviewed relevant information describing the database. Specifically, we 

tested for duplicate records, missing values, and out-of-range values in 

the data received from OGIS. We assessed the reliability of the system 

used to maintain these data. To determine the reliability of the case data, 

we independently replicated a report generated by the software and 

compared it to documents provided by OGIS to determine whether the 

data matched. Also, we conducted interviews with agency officials to gain 

an understanding of the process by which data are entered and validated. 

Based on the results of these efforts, we found the data sources to be 

sufficiently reliable for our purposes.

To assess the office’s actions to recommend policy changes to Congress 

and the President, we reviewed documentation describing policy 

recommendations that were made to Congress and the President. We 

analyzed annual reports on the status of the implementation of these 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 25 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

recommendations. In addition, we reviewed the Office of Management 

and Budget’s (OMB) written responses describing its reviews of OGIS’s 

policy recommendations, as well as any applicable OMB guidance, such 

as the Circular A-19. We supplemented our analyses with interviews of 

the Director of OGIS, the Acting Executive for Agency Services (the 

NARA organization in which OGIS is located), officials from OMB’s Office 

of General Counsel, and other cognizant NARA and OGIS officials. To 

assess OGIS’s actions to provide best practices to federal agencies, we 

reviewed documentation of OGIS’s agency best practices, case studies, 

and suggestions regarding FOIA included in the annual reports, and on 

the website and blog. We also observed OGIS meetings with other 

agencies, FOIA requesters, and the general public to discuss FOIA 

topics, such as the administration of fees and access to records through 

FOIA libraries. We supplemented our analyses with interviews of relevant 

OGIS officials to discuss the process used to identify best practices and 

measures established to evaluate their use by federal agencies.

We conducted this performance audit from October 2012 through 

September 2013 in accordance with generally accepted government 

auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the 

audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable 

basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We 

believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
Appendix II: Comments from the National 

Archives and Records Administration

Page 26 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

Appendix II: Comments from the National 

Archives and Records Administration
Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 27 GAO-13-650 OGIS’s FOIA Responsibilities

Valerie C. Melvin, (202) 512-6304 or melvinv@gao.gov

In addition to the contact named above, key contributors to this report 

were Cynthia J. Scott (assistant director), Nancy Glover, Cynthia Grant, 

Ashfaq Huda, Alina J. Johnson, Ruben Montes de Oca, Freda Paintsil, 

David Plocher, Glenn Spiegel, and Walter Vance.

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff 

Acknowledgments

(310995)
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