Washington, DC - In support of President Obama's commitment to transparency in the Federal government and to improve the administration of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is pleased to announce changes that will facilitate agency use of FOIA professionals and other personnel.

This week, OPM is providing guidance on the classification of positions responsible for administering FOIA. Agencies can use new OPM job titles to identify and designate FOIA-specific personnel.

OPM has also initiated exploring new federal job classification series to provide agencies with greater flexibility for designating personnel to work on FOIA requests and FOIA-related matters (such as privacy and information management). This new job classification series should promote increased professionalization of FOIA personnel and allow agencies to prioritize FOIA responses more easily, a potential long-term investment that will improve the human capital dedicated to FOIA processing across the Federal government. OPM has therefore issued a request to agencies to provide information to help OPM explore a new occupational series for FOIA positions.

"Transparency is one of the cornerstones of this administration," said OPM Director John Berry. "These actions advance the promise of open-government by professionalizing the FOIA workforce, and these steps will help attract and retain FOIA workers with the necessary skills for the fast and complete handling of requests."

To view the memos, please visit http://www.chcoc.gov/transmittals/TransmittalDetails.aspx?TransmittalID=3690 and http://www.chcoc.gov/transmittals/TransmittalDetails.aspx?TransmittalID=3687.

Our mission is to Recruit, Retain and Honor a World-Class Workforce to Serve the American People. OPM supports U.S. agencies with personnel services and policy leadership including staffing tools, guidance on labor-management relations and programs to improve work force performance.