1. Achieving Compliance & Transparency in the Public Sector 1
Achieving
Compliance &
Transparency
in the
Public Sector
INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

2. 2 Industry Perspective
Government has limited
resources. Given these
limitations, the focus
should be on workflow
standardization and
automation as it is the
most efficient and cost-
effective way to meet these
mandated requirements.

3. In today’s ever-changing and increasingly digital environment,
there is a whole new set of challenges for government employees.
Public sector organizations are focused on improving digital
services to meet the type of personalized and responsive service
citizens get from consumer companies. In addition to simply
keeping pace with customer service expectations, this switch to
digital is key to building the public’s trust in government through
better transparency and responsiveness.
In moving to a digital first approach, the government must also
display, store, manage and let citizens access a rapidly growing
amount of data and public records – and do that with shrinking
budgets and workforces, at the risk of effectiveness and efficiency.
Dealing with any one of these issues is difficult – but dealing with
all of them at once is nearly impossible. Solutions – particularly
workflow, review and processing technologies – are coming
forward, however, that help government at all levels better
display and manage public records information efficiently and
transparently.
To learn more about how the public sector can improve its
document workflow to meet compliance mandates and increase
transparency efforts, GovLoop and LexisNexis, a leader in data
management and information workflows, have partnered to
create this Industry Perspective. In this report, we will:
Discuss why efforts to improve transparency in the
public sector are so important, and how records
management can help
Explore how the public sector can standardize and
automate its compliance and documents process
so that it can be more efficient and compliant
Gain insight from Michael Gandy, Territory
Manager, Public Sector, LexisNexis, on how
LexisNexis’ public-sector solutions can change the
way a government organization’s workflow runs
INTRODUCTION
Achieving Compliance & Transparency in the Public Sector 3

4. 4 Industry Perspective
THE CHALLENGES
CONFRONTING GOVERNMENT
Compliance:
The No. 1 Challenge
“Unlike private sector organizations,
government agencies are not profit-driven,” said
Michael Gandy, Subject Matter Expert, Public
Sector, LexisNexis. “They are compliance-driven.”
Federal, state and local governments are
leveled with a variety of compliance efforts that
mandate a certain standard of transparency
and access to public records. Government
compliance efforts stem from a variety of
transparency and openness mandates that have
been growing over the past few decades.
“But in recent years the requests have expanded
into all government activities, resulting in a
massive increase in the number of requests
and a tremendous burden on the government
to ensure transparency compliance without
compromising sensitive data,” Gandy said.
President Obama and the Department of
Justice have directed federal agencies to apply
a presumption of openness in responding
to FOIA requests. The Office of Information
Policy at the Department of Justice oversees
agency compliance with these directives and
encourages all agencies to fully comply with
both the letter and the spirit of the FOIA.
It’s at the state and local level, too.
“There are approximately 40 state governors
who have also mandated some form of this
philosophy,” said Gandy.
While being compliance-driven works to increase
citizen trust, it is currently putting a difficult burden
on government employees and technology.
Government has limited resources. Given these
limitations, the focus should be on workflow
standardization and automation as it is the most
efficient and cost-effective way to meet these
mandated requirements.
Initially, agencies put up websites to allow for
self-service of information and requests. But as
the data has grown and requests have gotten
more complex, those sites do not support FOIA
the way they were intended to. That means that
now, highly-compensated people have to step
in to simply keep them running – meaning the
original purpose of trying to save money on the
openness process is not being met.
Additionally, Gandy said, government has still not
addressed two core issues: that governments
have to get information back to the requester
under compliance guidelines – and it must be
done in a way to protect the sensitive information
in those documents. We’ll review how this can be
addressed later in this report.
Before we can understand
how better workflow for
public-records requests
improves how the public
sector serves citizens, we
must first understand the
challenges that government
faces in several arenas:
compliance; trust from
the public related to
transparency; demands for
better digital services and
a growing amount of data
that government must
provide and host.
THE LIFECYCLE OF A PUBLIC-SECTOR REQUEST
A request is received in
the form of a document
with details about what
information is being
requested, and in what
timeframe.
That group identifies the proper documents –
which may incur a cost. Some materials may be
older and archived, and so that may mean produc-
ing from one type of media into another that could
then ultimately be produced in document form,
whether it be paper or electronic.
The office that receives the initial request
must turn it over to a separate group (often
the IT department) to execute the search,
within a mandated timeframe.
To close out the cycle,
somebody has to show it
was completed, and the
ticket closed.
Finally, there’s
a reporting
requirement.
Someone who
has oversight, a
public informa-
tion officer, for
example, needs
to be able to
generate reports
to determine
their compliance
rankings.
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5. Achieving Compliance & Transparency in the Public Sector 5
TYPES OF
PUBLIC RECORDS
“Public records” refer to
county, state or federal
materials that are typically
viewable by the public. Here
are just a few of the dozens of
types of records that may be
requested by a citizen.
The Hurdle of
Transparency and Trust
According to a 2015 Pew Research report, “The
public’s trust in government remains at historic
lows. Today, just 19% say they trust the federal
government to do what is right always or most
of the time, which is little changed from recent
years. Fewer than three-in-ten Americans have
expressed trust in government in every major
national poll conducted since July 2007 – the
longest period of low trust in government seen
in more than 50 years.”
Furthermore, the Pew report reveals that few
Americans think governments are very effective
in sharing data they collect with the public:
Just 5 percent
say the federal
government does
this very effectively,
with another 39
percent saying
the federal
government does
this somewhat
effectively.
5 percent say
state governments
share data very
effectively, with
another 44 percent
saying somewhat
effectively.
7 percent say
local governments
share data very
effectively, with
another 45 percent
responding
somewhat
effectively.
Many in and outside of government believe
that increased transparency in government
data and records is the solution to address this
distrust in government. As cited in President
Obama’s Transparency and Open Government
memorandum, “Transparency promotes
accountability and provides information for citizens
about what their Government is doing. Openness
will strengthen our democracy and promote
efficiency and effectiveness in Government.”
Demand for Digital Services:
New Citizen Expectations
In today’s digital age, we can buy almost any good
or service from the private sector with the click
of a mouse or the touch of a finger. Increasingly,
citizens are demanding the same type of ease
and convenience in their transactions with the
government – everything from renewing licenses
to downloading financial data.
Public records have been historically
requested via a phone call, an in-person visit
to a government office or by mail. But today,
citizens demand that these public records
and government data be easily available
and searchable online – no easy feat for
governments that struggle with innovative
technical solutions and limited budgets to
devote to improving digital services.
Citizens don’t demand this ability just for ease
of use or convenience – when government data
and information is easily accessible to all and
transparent, it gives constituents more trust in
the work their government is doing and the way
they are spending taxpayer dollars.
Growth of Data and
Information: A Rapid Rise
It’s no secret that government data along with
every other sector is experiencing an explosion
in growth. In fact, there is a 40 percent projected
growth in global data generated per year.
“The size and complexity of the amount of
information the government has to open up is
enormous,” Gandy said. “This rapid growth of
data, information and the requests on it has
led to hodge-podge, labor-intensive, inefficient,
expensive and largely ineffective programs with
no standardized tools to meet the requirements
of the mandates.”
As this data is growing, government faces
another challenge in managing it: much of this
data needs to be open data, in order to comply
with some mandates and encourage trust and
accessibility for the public.
corporate
filings
birth
records
health
professional
licenses
marriage
licenses
court
records
financial
data
real estate
sales
political
contribu-
tions
unclaimed
property
voter
registration
status
police
reports
FEDERAL
STATE
LOCAL
“Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for
citizens about what their Government is doing. Openness will strengthen
our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.”
President Obama’s Transparency and Open Government memorandum

6. 6 Industry Perspective
THE SOLUTION FOR BETTER
COMPLIANCE & TRANSPARENCY
Nevertheless, the public sector must rise to
the challenge of providing public records in an
efficient, transparent, effective and easy-to-
access way. Technologies that can help ease
these challenges include software originally
intended for eDiscovery and review.
LexisNexis provides several tools that can help
government at all levels do just that. With a
long history of developing litigation workflow
solutions, LexisNexis is now partnering with
government agencies to apply the right mix
of technologies to meet the challenge of
responding to public-records requests. Its
solutions – in particular, LAW® PreDiscovery
and Concordance® – help agencies meet their
openness responsibilities, while balancing the
need for transparency with privacy and national
security demands in times of austere budgets.
How To:
Handle Large
Volumes of
Data
Complex cases involve
large volumes of
data and documents
that require
powerful processing
technologies. Public-
records teams can
use this processing
capability to scan,
import, de-duplicate
and produce all
of the potential
documents needed
to answer a request.
Once all documents
have been reviewed
and appropriately
redacted, LexisNexis’s
LAW PreDiscovery
can produce the final
package for delivery to
the requester.
How To:
Manage
Documents
from Request
to Closure
A review technology
makes it easier to
determine which
documents meet the
needs of a citizen’s
request, then review
relevant documents for
necessary redactions.
Using case review
software not only
helps streamline the
process internally,
but aids in reporting
to outside entities.
Concordance® software
offers document
production, processing
and recordkeeping
capabilities that allow
users to: batch print,
download or email
after selecting and
redacting documents
as well as save redacted
document collections
for future requests,
greatly reducing
photocopying, searching
and redacting time
and expense.
How To:
Automate
Discovery
Key word searching can
cover an organization’s
entire document
population while also
utilizing de-duplication
and near-duplication
of records to reduce
the clutter and get
reviewers to the most
relevant documents.
How To:
Keep Sensitive
Information
Secure
While many
organization’s
compliance efforts
ensure that anyone has
access to government
information, there are
real security and privacy
concerns in that data.
Many times documents
are held back because
the redaction process is
just too difficult, which
violates the spirit of the
compliance efforts. But
LexisNexis tools can
automate parts of the
process of redacting
sensitive information
to ensure that all
applicable documents
can be released without
security or privacy risk.
How To:
Expand Your
Data Pool
With the processing
power of LexisNexis
software, organizations
can search extremely
large data sets to get
down to relevant data
within just one search.
Users can customize
searches to get the right
data the first time.
Complying with mandates like
FOIA and other public-records
compliance acts at the state
and local levels is critical to
the success of our democracy.
But having an understanding
and appreciation of open
government does not change
the fact that complying with
these mandates is incredibly
time- and cost-intensive.

7. Achieving Compliance & Transparency in the Public Sector 7
ABOUT
LEXISNEXIS
ABOUT
GOVLOOP
CONCLUSION
Government, today more than ever,
faces a slew of challenges ranging
from distrust in its work to a need
for better digital services. What can
help government better succeed
in dealing with these challenges
is well-executed compliance with
public-sector records requests. But
opening up government is easier
said than done.
“Meeting compliance, being able
to quickly get the information back
to the requester, making sure it’s
a secure process, making sure it
is standardized, and making sure
it’s easy to do so government
employees can spend their time
on mission-critical tasks, is so
important to the success of the
public sector,” said Gandy.
“And that’s where tools like ours
will help them,” he said. “We offer
the standardization and capabilities
to help the public sector meet its
goals. And when that happens,
government becomes more
efficient, transparent and able to
work on its core goals.”
GovLoop’s mission is to “connect government to improve
government.” We aim to inspire public-sector professionals by
serving as the knowledge network for government. GovLoop
connects more than 250,000 members, fostering cross-
government collaboration, solving common problems and
advancing government careers. GovLoop is headquartered in
Washington, D.C., with a team of dedicated professionals who
share a commitment to connect and improve government.
For more information about this report, please reach out to
info@govloop.com.
LexisNexis Software Solutions provides agencies, law firms
and legal departments of all sizes with world class business of
law and litigation software tools. Our innovative software and
mobile solutions include competitive solutions for eDiscovery,
case analysis and presentation, enterprise legal management
(ELM), customer relationship management (CRM) and practice
management.
For more information, please contact us at: 703-673-3545 or
transparency@lexisnexis.com.

8. 8 Industry Perspective
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