The Department of Justice has released its annual FOIA report for fiscal year 2024, apparently at some point on March 7, 2024, six days after the posting deadline. The Office of Information Policy, whose director was removed on the same day, did not issue an accompanying blog post about its report. Here are the key metrics:
132,527 requests received, up from 110,934 in FY 2023
157,180 requests processed, up from 144,064 in FY 2023
21,567 backlogged requests, down from 43,927 at the end of FY 2023.
2,577 appeals received, up from 2.044 in FY 2023.
2,479 appeals processed, up from 2,126 in FY 2023.
211 backlogged appeals, down from 240 at the end of FY 2023
Agency-wide average response time of 72.24 days for simple requests and 336.72 days for complex requests. Components with the slowest average response times for complex requests were NSD (849.27 days), ATF (685.52 days), and OIP (650.57 days).
$112.2 million in total costs, $94.66 million of which comprised administrative costs and $17.57 million comprised litigation related costs.
$36k fees collected from requesters for processing requests.