On June 30, 2016, President Obama signed into law the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, which contains several substantive and procedural amendments to the FOIA. As a part of the amendments, new reporting requirements were added for agency Annual FOIA Reports. Today OIP has published guidance to assist agencies in meeting these new requirements. Additionally, to assist agencies with their reporting obligations for the upcoming year, OIP is also announcing the deadlines for the submission of agencies' Fiscal Year 2016 Annual FOIA Reports, 2017 Chief FOIA Officer Reports, and Fiscal Year 2017 Quarterly FOIA Reports.
The FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 added three new requirements concerning agencies' Annual FOIA Reports. Agencies must now:
- Proactively make available the raw data elements used in the creation of their final Annual FOIA Report,
- Include in their Annual FOIA Report the number of times an exclusion was used, and
- Include in their Annual FOIA Report the number of records that were made available for public inspection under subsection (a)(2) of the FOIA (proactive disclosures).