On September 26th, the Office of Government Information Services (“OGIS”) published its Compliance Assessment Report for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs FOIA Office. The full report can be found here, although OGIS has also published a summary with its top-line findings and recommendations here.
OGIS’s fifteen findings were as follows:
1. VA acknowledged requests in an average of two weeks after receipt in fiscal year (FY) 2024, but veterans seeking their own records from the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) waited an average of five months to receive records. (Recommendation 1)
2. VA’s handling of first-party requests, particularly with regard to the intersection between FOIA and the Privacy Act, is complex and confusing. (Recommendation 2)
3. VA’s confusing communication to veterans seeking their own benefits records prevents them from knowing whether they can expect administrative rights under FOIA. (Recommendations 3-5)
4. VA is not consistently complying with the FOIA statutory requirement to provide requesters with estimated dates of completion (EDCs) upon request. (Recommendation 6)
5. Letters from VA’s FOIA program to requesters are not written in plain language. (Recommendation 7)
6. VA’s reporting on the administration of FOIA appears to be inconsistent, complicating review of the FOIA program’s performance. (Recommendations 8-10)
7. VA’s decentralized system for obtaining records relies on collateral duty staff to locate records and process requests for records which slows the process. (Recommendation 11)
8. The technology and systems that VA uses to maintain records and process FOIA requests are siloed and not always efficient. Multiple programs are used to process FOIA requests and the platforms are unable to communicate with each other. (Recommendation 12)
9. Communication about VA’s FOIA program on the agency’s website is not always clear and consistent, and there is no FOIA handbook as required by the FOIA statute. (Recommendations 13 and 14)
10. VA’s FOIA program contact information and FOIA Public Liaison information on FOIA.gov, the government’s central website for FOIA, is often not correct. (Recommendation 15)