2022 Public Records Benchmark Report

The “2022 Public Records Complexity Benchmark Report” from Granicus quantifies actionable trends in the public records space, pointing to a growing demand for government transparency.

This statistically significant data can be used to understand the mechanics of the public records process – including those complex factors which can cause delays in response times. Going back to Q1 2018, the report can offer proof of the impact of significant events on information sharing; forecast the future state of the industry, and support tech investments to streamline workflows.

“Significant global challenges such as the pandemic and social unrest have triggered an unprecedented acceleration for the need for transparency across a broad spectrum of issues,” said Suzanne Behrens, CMO, Granicus. “At the same time, new reporting requirements and public record types – including police body cam footage, drone footage, and requests for “any-and-all” emails – have made fulfilling these requests more time intensive. An efficient public records process is a big part of enabling transparency, and refining it presents a huge opportunity for governments to increase trust with constituents.”

The Benchmark Report includes anonymized data from state, county, and city government agencies across the U.S. and assesses the complexity of fulfilling public records requests by weighing factors such as:

• quantity of response documents
• size of response documents
• file types
• average user interactions
• total time spent processing

View the detailed data charts and analysis; then share the report with others in your organization who may benefit from a deeper understanding of the challenges facing public records managers today and tomorrow.