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2018 Chief FOIA Officer Report

Margaret McCloskey Shanks, Deputy Secretary and Chief FOIA Officer for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board), hereby submits the Chief FOIA Officer Report on behalf of the Board.

Section 1: Steps Taken to Apply the Presumption of Openness
The guiding principle underlying DOJ's FOIA Guidelines is the presumption of openness.

Please answer the following questions in order to describe the steps your agency has taken to ensure that the presumption of openness is being applied to all decisions involving the FOIA. You may also include any additional information that illustrates how your agency is working to apply the presumption of openness.

A. FOIA Training
1. Did your FOIA professionals or the personnel at your agency who have FOIA responsibilities attend any substantive FOIA training or conference during the reporting period such as that provided by the Department of Justice?

Yes

2. If yes, please provide a brief description of the type of training attended or conducted and the topics covered.

In January 2018, the Department of Justice's Office of Information Policy (OIP) provided FOIA training at the Board for the Board's FOIA personnel and staff from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Open Market Committee, National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and Department of the Treasury. Attendees were given a refresher on current FOIA topics, including an update on current legal and policy developments impacting FOIA administration.

3. Provide an estimate of the percentage of your FOIA professionals and staff with FOIA responsibilities who attended substantive FOIA training during this reporting period.

One hundred percent of the Board's FOIA professionals and staff with FOIA responsibilities attended substantive FOIA training during this reporting period.

4. OIP has directed agencies to "take steps to ensure that all of their FOIA professionals attend substantive FOIA training at least once throughout the year." If your response to the previous question is that less than 80% of your FOIA professionals attended training, please explain your agency's plan to ensure that all FOIA professionals receive or attend substantive FOIA training during the next reporting year.

N/A

B. Outreach
5. Did your FOIA professionals engage in any outreach or dialogue with the requester community or open government groups regarding your administration of the FOIA?

Yes. The Board's FOIA Public Liaison routinely engages in dialogue with FOIA requesters through email and by telephone to clarify and update the status of FOIA requests.

C. Other Initiatives
6. Describe any efforts your agency has undertaken to inform non-FOIA professionals of their obligations under the FOIA.

The Board has incorporated OIP's FOIA training modules into the Board's internal training application, which is accessible by all Board staff.

7. 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 Board is committed to promoting transparency and openness not only in how we make decisions regarding FOIA requests, but also by providing information of public interest in a manner that is readily available and easily accessible. To further the following goals, the described items are currently available on the Board's public website:

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.

The Board adjudicated requests for expedited processing in an average of seven 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.

N/A

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 Board conducted a self-assessment of its FOIA program by reviewing Quarterly and Annual Report data and by using the OIP FOIA Self-Assessment Toolkit.

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).

FOIA requesters have sought assistance from the Board's FOIA Public Liaison approximately 55 times 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.

N/A

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.

To ensure that the Board's FOIA office continues to respond to FOIA requests effectively and efficiently, the Board's records management staff have made searches for older records far more efficient. For instance, staff are continuing to digitize paper records from the Board's legacy central filing system, the papers of former Board Chairmen, and approximately 500,000 microfiche of banking supervision and regulation records. Staff also continue to digitize old finding aids to records in off-site storage to expedite locating documents for FOIA requests. In addition, staff are starting a project to create finding aids for supervision records, which are located in numerous electronic collections maintained by Board and Federal Reserve System staff.

Section III: Steps Taken to Increase Proactive Disclosures
The Department of Justice has long focused on the need for agencies to work proactively to post information online without waiting for individual requests to be received.

Please answer the following questions to describe the steps your agency has taken to increase the amount of material that is available on your agency websites. In addition to the questions below, you should also describe any additional steps taken by your agency to make and improve proactive disclosures of information.

1. Provide examples of material that your agency has proactively disclosed during the past reporting year, including links to the posted material.

As previously discussed in response to Question 7 in Section 1, the Board routinely discloses material and information by posting items of public interest on its website, including, for example:

For additional examples of information that the Board proactively posts on its public website, please see the response to Question 7 in Section 1 of this report.

2. Did your agency use any means to publicize or highlight important proactive disclosures for public awareness? If yes, please describe these efforts.

The Board provides links to "Recent Postings" and "Calendar" pages on its public website to help highlight recent developments and upcoming items, respectively. In addition, the Board utilizes numerous social media channels, including Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr, and Facebook, to disseminate information.

The public can also opt to be notified by email when various items, such as press releases, speeches, testimony, and other information, are posted to the Board's public website. In addition, the public may subscribe to the Board's various RSS feeds, which relay to subscribers timely information about new Board releases, including:

3. Beyond posting new material, is your agency taking steps to make the posted information more useful to the public, especially to the community of individuals who regularly access your agency's website?

Yes.

4. If yes, please provide examples of such improvements.

5. If there are any other steps your agency has taken to improve proactive disclosures, please describe them here. For example, has your agency engaged requesters in determining how and what to post? Has your agency used web analytics to inform your proactive disclosures?

The Board formed a working group to focus on Public Engagement and identify records for proactive disclosure.

Section IV: Steps Taken to Greater Utilize Technology
A key component of FOIA administration is using technology to make information more accessible. In addition to using the internet to make proactive disclosures, agencies should also be exploring ways to utilize technology in responding to requests.

Please answer the following questions to describe how your agency is utilizing technology to improve its FOIA administration and the public's access to information. You should also include any additional information that that describes your agency's efforts in this area.

1. Has your agency identified any best practices to leverage technology to facilitate overall FOIA efficiency, such as improving record search capabilities, utilizing document-sharing platforms for consultations and referrals, or employing software that can sort and de-duplicate documents? If yes, please describe the best practices, the types of technology used and the impact on your agency's processing.

To ensure that the Board's FOIA office continues to respond to FOIA requests effectively and efficiently, the Board's records management staff have made searches for older records far more efficient. For instance, staff are continuing to digitize paper records from the Board's legacy central filing system, the papers of former Board Chairmen, and approximately 500,000 microfiche of banking supervision and regulation records. Staff also continue to digitize old finding aids to records in off-site storage to expedite locating documents for FOIA requests. In addition, staff are starting a project to create finding aids for supervision records, which are located in numerous electronic collections maintained by Board and Federal Reserve System staff.

2. Did your agency successfully post all four quarterly reports for Fiscal Year 2017?

Yes

3. If your agency did not successfully post all quarterly reports, with information appearing on FOIA.gov, please explain why and provide your agency's plan for ensuring that such reporting is successful in Fiscal Year 2018.

N/A

4. The FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 requires all agencies to post the raw statistical data used to compile their Annual FOIA Reports. Please provide the link to this posting for your agency's Fiscal Year 2016 Annual FOIA Report and, if available, for your agency's Fiscal Year 2017 Annual FOIA Report.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/foia/annrept_2016.htm

https://www.federalreserve.gov/foia/annualreports.htm

5. If there are any other steps your agency has taken to improve use of technology in FOIA, please describe them here.

N/A

Section V: Steps Taken to Improve Timeliness in Responding to Requests and Reducing Backlogs
The Department of Justice has emphasized the importance of improving timeliness in responding to requests. This section of your Chief FOIA Officer Report addresses both time limits and backlog reduction. Backlog reduction is measured both in terms of numbers of backlogged requests or appeals and by looking at whether agencies closed their ten oldest requests, appeals, and consultations.

For the figures required in this Section, please use the numbers contained in the specified sections of your agency's 2017 Annual FOIA Report and, when applicable, your agency's 2016 Annual FOIA Report.

A. Simple Track
Section VII.A of your agency's Annual FOIA Report, entitled "FOIA Requests – Response Time for All Processed Requests," includes figures that show your agency's average response times for processed requests. For agencies utilizing a multi-track system to process requests, there is a category for "simple" requests, which are those requests that are placed in the agency's fastest (non-expedited) track, based on the low volume and/or simplicity of the records requested.

1. Does your agency utilize a separate track for simple requests?

Yes

2. If so, for your agency overall in Fiscal Year 2017, was the average number of days to process simple requests twenty working days or fewer?

The average number of days to process simple requests was eight.

3. Please provide the percentage of requests processed by your agency in Fiscal Year 2017 that were placed in your simple track.

Fifty percent of FOIA requests processed by the Board were placed in the simple track.

4. If your agency does not track simple requests separately, was the average number of days to process all non-expedited requests twenty working days or fewer?

N/A

B. Backlogs
Section XII.A of your agency's Annual FOIA Report, entitled "Backlogs of FOIA Requests and Administrative Appeals" shows the numbers of any backlogged requests or appeals from the fiscal year. You should refer to these numbers from your Annual FOIA Reports for both Fiscal Year 2016 and Fiscal Year 2017 when completing this section of your Chief FOIA Officer Report.

BACKLOGGED REQUESTS
5. If your agency had a backlog of requests at the close of Fiscal Year 2017, did that backlog decrease as compared with the backlog reported at the end of Fiscal Year 2016?

Yes. The backlog decreased as compared with the backlog reported at the end of Fiscal Year 2016.

6. If not, explain why and describe the causes that contributed to your agency not being able to reduce its backlog. When doing so, please also indicate if any of the following were contributing factors:

  • An increase in the number of incoming requests.
  • A loss of staff.
  • An increase in the complexity of the requests received. If possible, please provide examples or briefly describe the types of complex requests contributing to your backlog increase.
  • Any other reasons--please briefly describe or provide examples when possible.

N/A

7. If you had a request backlog please report the percentage of requests that make up the backlog out of the total number of requests received by your agency in Fiscal Year 2017.

The percentage of requests that make up the backlog out of the total number of requests received is less than six percent.

BACKLOGGED APPEALS
8. If your agency had a backlog of appeals at the close of Fiscal Year 2017, did that backlog decrease as compared with the backlog reported at the end of Fiscal Year 2016?

Yes, the Board did not have a backlog of appeals at the close of Fiscal Year 2017.

9. If not, explain why and describe the causes that contributed to your agency not being able to reduce its backlog. When doing so, please also indicate if any of the following were contributing factors:

  • An increase in the number of incoming appeals.
  • A loss of staff.
  • An increase in the complexity of the requests received. If possible, please provide examples or briefly describe the types of complex requests contributing to your backlog increase.
  • Any other reasons -- please briefly describe or provide examples when possible.

N/A

10. If you had an appeal backlog please report the percentage of appeals that make up the backlog out of the total number of appeals received by your agency in Fiscal Year 2017. If your agency did not receive any appeals in Fiscal Year 2017 and/or has no appeal backlog, please answer with "N/A."

N/A

C. Backlog Reduction Plans
11. In the 2017 guidelines for Chief FOIA Officer Reports, any agency with a backlog of over 1000 requests in Fiscal Year 2016 was asked to provide a plan for achieving backlog reduction in the year ahead. Did you agency implement a backlog reduction plan last year? If so, describe your agency's efforts in implementing this plan and note if your agency was able to achieve backlog reduction in Fiscal Year 2017?

N/A

12. If your agency had a backlog of more than 1,000 requests in Fiscal Year 2017, what is your agency's plan to reduce this backlog during Fiscal Year 2018?

N/A

D. Status of Ten Oldest Requests, Appeals, and Consultations
Section VII.E, entitled "Pending Requests – Ten Oldest Pending Requests," Section VI.C.(5), entitled "Ten Oldest Pending Administrative Appeals," and Section XII.C., entitled "Consultations on FOIA Requests – Ten Oldest Consultations Received from Other Agencies and Pending at Your Agency," show the ten oldest pending requests, appeals, and consultations. You should refer to these numbers from your Annual FOIA Reports for both Fiscal Year 2016 and Fiscal Year 2017 when completing this section of your Chief FOIA Officer Report.

TEN OLDEST REQUESTS
13. In Fiscal Year 2017, did your agency close the ten oldest requests that were reported pending in your Fiscal Year 2016 Annual FOIA Report?

Yes

14. If no, please provide the number of these requests your agency was able to close by the end of the fiscal year, as listed in Section VII.E of your Fiscal Year 2016 Annual FOIA Report. If you had less than ten total oldest requests to close, please indicate that.

N/A

15. Of the requests your agency was able to close from your ten oldest, please indicate how many of these were closed because the request was withdrawn by the requester. If any were closed because the request was withdrawn, did you provide any interim responses prior to the withdrawal?

N/A

TEN OLDEST APPEALS
16. In Fiscal Year 2017, did your agency close the ten oldest appeals that were reported pending in your Fiscal Year 2016 Annual FOIA Report?

Yes, the Board closed the one appeal that was reported pending in its Fiscal Year 2016 Annual FOIA Report.

17. If no, please provide the number of these appeals your agency was able to close by the end of the fiscal year, as listed in Section VII.C.(5) of your Fiscal Year 2016 Annual FOIA Report. If you had less than ten total oldest appeals to close, please indicate that.

N/A

TEN OLDEST CONSULTATIONS
18. In Fiscal Year 2017, did your agency close the ten oldest consultations that were reported pending in your Fiscal Year 2016 Annual FOIA Report?

Yes.

19. If no, please provide the number of these consultations your agency was able to close by the end of the fiscal year, as listed in Section XII.C. of your Fiscal Year 2016 Annual FOIA Report. If you had less than ten total oldest consultations to close, please indicate that.

N/A

E. Additional Information on Ten Oldest Requests, Appeals, and Consultations & Plans
20. Briefly explain any obstacles your agency faced in closing its ten oldest requests, appeals, and consultations from Fiscal Year 2017.

N/A

21. If your agency was unable to close any of its ten oldest requests because you were waiting to hear back from other agencies on consultations you sent, please provide the date the request was initially received by your agency, the date when your agency sent the consultation, and the date when you last contacted the agency where the consultation was pending.

N/A

22. If your agency did not close its ten oldest pending requests, appeals, or consultations, please provide a plan describing how your agency intends to close those "ten oldest" requests, appeals, and consultations during Fiscal Year 2017.

N/A

F. Success Stories
Out of all the activities undertaken by your agency since March 2017 to increase transparency and improve FOIA administration, please briefly describe here at least one success story that you would like to highlight as emblematic of your agency's efforts. The success story can come from any one of the five key areas. As noted above, OIP will highlight these agency success stories during Sunshine Week. To facilitate this process, all agencies should use bullets to describe their success story and limit their text to a half page. The success story is designed to be a quick summary of key achievements. A complete description of all your efforts will be contained in the body of your Chief FOIA Officer Report.

  • Live-streamed four FOMC press conferences, one open Board meeting, and a Payment Systems webinar.
  • Produced highlight videos to accompany publications of the Report on Economic Well Being of U.S. Households, and the Survey of Consumer Finances.
  • Produced "Fed Functions: Promoting Financial System Stability" video featuring Board employees highlighting the functions of the Federal Reserve.
  • Produced four FAQ videos: "What is macroeconomics?" "What is aggregate demand?" "What does the Fed do?" and "What is the FOMC?"
  • The Board closed the ten oldest requests reported pending at the end of Fiscal Year 2016 and reduced the backlog of FOIA requests to less than six percent.
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Last Update: March 08, 2018