Coronavirus Roundup: More Feds Are Eligible for Vaccines; Calls to Review FOIA During Pandemic

By Courtney Buble, Government Executive, Mar. 17, 2021

According to an analysis by Allan Blutstein, founder of the noncommercial forum FOIA Advisor, in fiscal 2020––the year upended by the pandemic–– agencies received 7.9% fewer FOIA requests and processed 12% fewer than in fiscal 2019. The analysis, shared with Government Executive, also found that unfulfilled requests increased 9.6%, backlogged requests increased 17.4%, the average time to process a “simple request” decreased 17.9%, and agency processing and litigation costs increased by 13.8% and 10.9%, respectively.

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In other FOIA-related news, a group of bipartisan senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee asked the Government Accountability Office on Monday to review how the pandemic has impacted agencies’ compliance with Freedom of Information Act requests.

Read more here.