Document Requests

Response Time to Congressional Committees Could Be Improved Gao ID: HRD-87-45 April 24, 1987

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) procedures for responding to congressional requests for FDA documents.

GAO found that: (1) the FDA Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA) handles most congressional document requests; (2) other FDA offices send requested documents to OLA for review; (3) OLA reviews the documents for sensitivity, then sends them, with a document listing, to the requester; (4) FDA took an average of 41 days to respond to document requests, an average of 34 days late; (5) FDA identified a number of reasons for the delays, including staff shortages, cumbersome procedures, and nonmandatory response target dates; and (6) OLA reviews documents for trade secrets, even when other FDA offices have already done so.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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