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DOD Personnel Clearances: DOD Needs to Overcome Impediments to Eliminating Backlog and Determining Its Size

GAO-04-344 Published: Feb 09, 2004. Publicly Released: Feb 24, 2004.
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Highlights

Terrorist attacks and espionage cases have heightened national security concerns and highlighted the need for a timely, high-quality personnel security clearance process. However, GAO's past work found that the Department of Defense (DOD) had a clearance backlog and other problems with its process. GAO was asked to address: (1) What is the size of DOD's security clearance backlog, and how accurately is DOD able to estimate its size? (2) What factors impede DOD's ability to eliminate the backlog and accurately determine its size? (3) What are the potential adverse effects of those impediments to eliminating DOD's backlog and accurately estimating the backlog's size? GAO was also asked to determine the status of the congressionally authorized transfer of Defense Security Service (DSS) investigative functions and personnel to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Defense Because of continuing concerns about the size of the backlog and its accurate measurement and the personnel security clearance program's importance to national security, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence to identify and implement steps to match the sizes of the investigative and adjudicative workforces to the clearance request workload.
Closed – Implemented
DOD Response: Partially concur. To address the issue, DOD is developing a verification and validation module to predict and validate investigative requirements, as well as looking into interfacing with other databases (e.g., acquisition) to be able to better predict future and continuing investigative needs. OUSD(I) has directed the DOD Components to adequately budget for their investigative requirements and for those with adjudication responsibilities to adequately staff and resource the central adjudication facility in order to meet its mission requirements. In February 2005, DOD transferred its personnel security investigative function to OPM, and now obtains nearly all of its clearances from OPM. In November 2005, OPM reports that personnel security clearance personnel staffing has exceeded its 2004 estimate of 8,000. For the adjudicative workforce portion of this recommendation which is still relevant to DOD, substantial progress has been seen. GAO-07-842T (p. 11) noted "As of June 2006, DISCO [the adjudication center for clearance decisions for most industry personnel] reported that it had adjudicated 82 percent of its initial top secret clearances within 30 days." Similarly, OMB's February 2007 report (final bullet on p. 4) to Congress on clearance-related issues noted, "DOD...averaged 18 days for 80% of the 108,903 actions reported." The IRTPA-mandated requirement is to adjudicate 80 percent within 30 days. Thus, DOD's clearance adjudications have met the IRTPA-mandated requirement. Thus, it appears that DOD now has sufficient adjudicative workforce available to render clearance decisions within the time limit specified by IRTPA.
Department of Defense Because of continuing concerns about the size of the backlog and its accurate measurement and the personnel security clearance program's importance to national security, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence to develop a strategic plan for overcoming problems accessing data locally, at the state level, and overseas.
Closed – Implemented
DOD Response: Concur. The Department is addressing this issue, but a more formal approach will be developed. DOD's solution to this recommendation remains under development. Efforts are now underway to obtain access to INTERPOL and State Department databases for criminal history information. Also, separate studies are underway to enhance data collection of overseas and domestic information through automated means.
Department of Defense Because of continuing concerns about the size of the backlog and its accurate measurement and the personnel security clearance program's importance to national security, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence to develop DOD-wide backlog definitions and measures, and monitor the backlog at each of the three clearance-process stages using the DOD-wide measures.
Closed – Implemented
DOD Response: Concur. DOD will develop backlog definitions and measures and "dashboard-like" tools to more effectively monitor their personnel security clearance process. According to DOD, JPAS will include a module to verify and validate all investigative requests for DOD military personnel and a subset of the civilian population. DOD continues to develop a full solution to this recommendation. As part of the effort of placing DOD's personnel security clearance program on GAO's high-risk list in January 2005, the Deputy Director of OMB met with GAO officials and indicated that (1) OMB staff would work with DOD and OPM to develop preliminary milestones and metrics for correcting problems associated with DOD's personnel security clearance program, and (2) GAO would be asked to comment on that information. Based on our review of OMB's plan, we concluded it meets the intent of our recommendation.
Department of Defense Because of continuing concerns about the size of the backlog and its accurate measurement and the personnel security clearance program's importance to national security, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence to complete the implementation of the Joint Personnel Adjudication System.
Closed – Implemented
DOD Response: Concur. Full implementation of the Joint Personnel Adjudication System (JPAS) is the goal and efforts are underway to achieve it. According to DOD, JPAS became operational in March 2005. We reported in June 2005 testimony that much of JPAS has been implemented allowing for the monitoring of overdue reinvestigations, the generation of accurate estimates for that portion of the backlog, and elimination of the need for DOD's 10 adjudication facilities to maintain their own databases of adjudication information.

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Topics

CounterterrorismHomeland securityInternal controlsInvestigations by federal agenciesJob classificationPerformance appraisalSecurity clearance backlogsSecurity clearancesNational securitySecurity investigations