Except for those agencies specifically excluded from Office of Personnel Management (OPM) recordkeeping requirements by statute, OPM regulation, or formal agreement between OPM and the agency, this subpart applies to—and within this subpart agency means—each executive department and independent establishment of the Federal Government; each corporation wholly owned or controlled by the United States; and, with respect to positions subject to civil service rules and regulations, the legislative and judicial branches of the Federal Government. OPM will list agencies to which this subpart does not apply in the Guide to Personnel Recordkeeping, and will amend the Guide from time to time to update that list.

Each agency shall establish an Official Personnel Folder (OPF) for each employee occupying a position subject to this part, except as provided in § 293.306. Except as provided in the Guide to Personnel Recordkeeping, there will be only one OPF maintained for each employee regardless of service in various agencies.

(a) The Official Personnel Folder (OPF) of each employee in a position subject to civil service rules and regulations and of each former employee who held such a position is part of the records of the Office of Personnel Management (Office).

(b) The Office has Government-wide responsibility for developing regulations, practices and procedures for the establishment, maintenance, and transfer of OPFs.

(c) Agencies shall be responsible for the following:

(1) The establishment of the OPF for a new appointee or a new employee for whom no OPF has previously been established; and

(2) The maintenance of a previously existing OPF during the period any new appointee or employee remains an agency's employee.

(d)(1) Custodian means the agency in physical possession of an OPF. In the case of an electronic OPF (eOPF), the custodian is the agency that has primary access to an eOPF contained within a document management system approved by the Office.

(2) A custodian shall be responsible for the maintenance and transfer of the OPF or eOPF, and the costs associated with these activities.

(3) An agency is the custodian of an OPF it requests from the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC), for any temporary use, from the date that the OPF is transmitted by the NPRC to the agency until the date that the NPRC receives the OPF back from the agency.

(4) An agency is no longer the custodian of an OPF once the OPF has been transferred to and accepted by the NPRC.

(5) Once NPRC has approved the transfer, the Office is the custodian of the OPF until the destruction date established for the file pursuant to the National Archive and Records Administration's General Records Schedule, unless another agency requests the OPF from the NPRC in the interim.

(e) Agencies and custodians shall carry out their responsibilities with respect to the OPF or eOPF in accordance with this subpart and the Office's Guide to Personnel Recordkeeping.

The head of each agency shall maintain in the Official Personnel Folder the reports of selection and other personnel actions named in section 2951 of title 5, United States Code. The folder shall contain long-term records affecting the employee's status and service as required by OPM's instructions and as designated in the Guide to Personnel Recordkeeping.

Each agency shall use only OPFs from Office of Federal Supply and Services stock (Standard Form 66) for the folders required by this part.

When an agency hires a person who has served on or after April 1, 1947, in a position subject to this part, it shall request the transfer of the OPF pertaining to the person's employment. The folder so obtained shall be used in lieu of establishing a new OPF. In the event that the prior service occurred wholly before April 1, 1947, the agency shall request any files or records that may be located in the Federal records storage center. The request shall note that because of the dates of service there will likely be no OPF. Any such file or record found for this individual shall be incorporated into the OPF being established for the employee.

(a) When a person for whom an OPF has been established transfers from one agency to another, the last employing (losing) agency shall, on request, transfer the OPF to the new employing agency.

(b) Before transferring the Official Personnel Folder, the losing agency shall:

(1) Remove those records of a temporary nature filed on the left side of the folder, except for PMRS employees' performance ratings of record including the performance plan on which the most recent rating was based;

(2) Transfer performance ratings of record and the performance plan on which the most recent rating was based from the Employee Performance File of PMRS employees to their Official Personnel Folder, if the ratings and plans are not maintained by the agency in the Official Personnel Folder; and

(3) Ensure that all permanent documents of the folder are complete, correct, and present in the folder in accordance with the Guide to Personnel Recordkeeping.

(a) Folders of persons separated from Federal employment must be retained by the losing agency for 30 working days after separation, and may be retained for additional 60 days (90 days where administratively necessary, e.g., where an appeal or an allegation of discrimination is made or where an employee retires or dies in service). Thereafter, the OPF must be transferred to the General Services Administration, National Personnel Records Center (Civilian Personnel Records), 111 Winnebago Street, St. Louis, Missouri 63118.

(b) When a former Federal employee is reappointed in the Federal service, the National Personnel Records Center (Civilian Personnel Records) shall, upon request, transfer the OPF to the new employing agency.

(c) Agencies are responsible for all costs associated with the establishment and maintenance of OPFs and the transfer of OPFs to the National Personnel Records Center.

(d) Agencies are responsible for all costs associated with agency-initiated requests for OPFs or services from the National Personnel Records Center.

The employing agency having possession of an OPF shall remove temporary records from the OPF before it is transferred to another agency. For these and also for temporary records of their current employees, maintenance of the records shall be in accordance with General Records Schedule 1, promulgated by the General Services Administration.

Agencies will take necessary precautions to safeguard all OPFs. In the event of a lost or destroyed OPF, the current (or last, in the case of a former Federal employee) employing agency shall take the necessary action to reconstruct the essential portions of the OPF as specified in the Guide to Personnel Recordkeeping or other Office instructions.

The Office, or an agency in physical possession of an OPF in response to a third party Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request may disclose information as provided in this subpart. A current employee's request for access to his/her own OPF (also included are employee performance file system folders and files) that cites the FOIA, as with all stated Privacy Act requests made by current employees, shall be processed in accordance with agency Privacy Act procedures consistent with Office regulations in part 297 of this chapter. All requests for their OPFs from former employees, and FOIA requests for former employee OPFs, shall be referred to the Office's regional or area office nearest to the location of the requester.

(a) The following information from both the OPF and employee performance file system folders, their automated equivalent records, and from other personnel record files that constitute an agency record within the meaning of the FOIA and which are under the control of the Office, about most present and former Federal employees, is available to the public:

(1) Name;

(2) Present and past position titles and occupational series;

(3) Present and past grades;

(4) Present and past annual salary rates (including performance awards or bonuses, incentive awards, merit pay amount, Meritorious or Distinguished Executive Ranks, and allowances and differentials);

(5) Present and past duty stations (includes room numbers, shop designations, or other identifying information regarding buildings or places of employment); and

(6) Position descriptions, identification of job elements, and those performance standards (but not actual performance appraisals) that the release of which would not interfere with law enforcement programs or severely inhibit agency effectiveness. Performance elements and standards (or work expectations) may be withheld when they are so interwined with performance appraisals that their disclosure would reveal an individual's performance appraisal.

(b) The Office or agency will generally not disclose information where the data sought is a list of names, present or past position titles, grades, salaries, performance standards, and/or duty stations of Federal employees which, as determined by the official responsible for custody of the information:

(1) Is selected in such a way that would reveal more about the employee on whom information is sought than the six enumerated items, the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy; or

(2) Would otherwise be protected from mandatory disclosure under an exemption of the FOIA.

(c) In addition to the information described in paragraph (a) of this section, a Government official may provide other information from these records (or automated equivalents) of an employee, to others outside of the agency, under a summons, warrant, subpoena, or other legal process; as provided by the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. 552a(b)(4) through (b)(11)), under those Privacy Act routine uses promulgated by the Office, and as required by the FOIA.