At HUD, it takes too long to find electronically stored documents and data
Tajha Chappellet-Lanier, FedScoop, Jan. 17, 2018
Submit a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the agency is legally mandated to respond to the request for documents within 20 business days.
However, a recent inspector general’s evaluation found that HUD might struggle with this task — the agency’s tool for finding these documents, its E-Discovery Management System (EDMS), is just too slow. In a moderately redacted version of the evaluation posted online, the IG lays out the reasons why HUD struggles to find electronic documents in a timely manner.
The evaluation, initiated “to determine whether HUD’s EDMS has the capacity to meet customers’ demand,” ultimately concludes that the EDMS does not fulfill its job. A FOIA request is just one reason that HUD officers may be looking for electronic documents, or “electronically stored information” (ESI), as the report calls it. Other offices as well, such as the Office of General Counsel and the Office of the Inspector General, might find themselves needing to collect internal emails, word documents, spreadsheets and more.
Read more here.