Personnel Security Clearances: Additional Actions Needed to Ensure Quality, Address Timeliness, and Reduce Investigation Backlog
Highlights
What GAO Found
Executive branch agencies have made progress reforming the security clearance process, but long-standing key initiatives remain incomplete. Progress includes the issuance of common federal adjudicative guidelines and updated strategic documents to help sustain the reform effort. However, agencies face challenges in implementing certain aspects of the 2012 Federal Investigative Standards—criteria for conducting background investigations—including establishing a continuous evaluation program, and the issuance of a reciprocity policy to guide agencies in honoring previously granted clearances by other agencies remains incomplete. Executive branch agencies have taken recent steps to prioritize over 50 reform initiatives to help focus agency efforts and facilitate their completion. In addition, while agencies have taken steps to establish government-wide performance measures for the quality of investigations, neither the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) nor the Security, Suitability, and Credentialing Performance Accountability Council (PAC) have set a milestone for their completion. Without establishing such a milestone, completion may be further delayed and agencies will not have a schedule against which they can track progress or to which they are accountable.
The number of executive branch agencies meeting established timeliness objectives for initial security clearances decreased from fiscal years 2012 through 2016, and reporting has been limited. For example, 59 percent of the executive branch agencies reviewed by GAO reported meeting investigation and adjudication timeliness objectives for initial top secret clearances in fiscal year 2012, compared with 10 percent in fiscal year 2016. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA) required the executive branch to submit an annual report, through 2011, to appropriate congressional committees on, among other things, the time required to conduct investigations, adjudicate cases, and grant clearances. Since the requirement ended, reporting has been limited to a portion of the intelligence community. Without comprehensive reporting, Congress will not be able to monitor agencies' progress in meeting timeliness objectives, identify corrections, or effectively execute its oversight role.
The National Background Investigations Bureau (NBIB), within the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), has taken steps to improve the background investigation process, but it faces operational challenges in addressing the investigation backlog and increasing investigator capacity. While NBIB has taken positive steps to improve its oversight of background investigation contracts, it faces operational challenges in reducing the investigation backlog—which grew from 190,000 cases in August 2014 to more than 709,000 in September 2017. To increase capacity NBIB has hired additional federal investigators and increased the number of its investigative fieldwork contracts, but it has not developed a plan for reducing the backlog or established goals for increasing total investigator capacity. Without such a plan and goals, the backlog may persist and executive branch agencies will continue to lack the cleared personnel needed to help execute their respective missions. The bill for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, passed by Congress in November 2017, would authorize DOD to conduct its own background investigations.
Why GAO Did This Study
A high-quality personnel security clearance process is necessary to minimize the risks of unauthorized disclosures of classified information and to help ensure that security-relevant information is identified and assessed. The passage of IRTPA initiated an effort to reform the security clearance process government-wide.
This report assesses the extent to which (1) executive branch agencies made progress reforming the security clearance process; (2) executive branch agencies completed timely initial clearances from fiscal years 2012-2016, and reported on timeliness; and (3) NBIB has taken steps to improve the background investigation process and address the backlog. GAO reviewed documentation; analyzed timeliness data; and interviewed officials from the four PAC Principals and NBIB. This is a public version of a sensitive report that GAO issued in December 2017. Information that the DNI and OPM deemed sensitive has been omitted.
Recommendations
Congress should consider reinstating the IRTPA requirement for clearance timeliness reporting. GAO is also making six recommendations, including that the DNI and other PAC Principals set a milestone for establishing measures for investigation quality, and that NBIB develop a plan to reduce the backlog and establish goals for increasing total investigator capacity. NBIB concurred with the recommendations made to it. The DNI did not concur with GAO's conclusions and recommendations. GAO continues to believe they are valid, as discussed in the report.
Matter for Congressional Consideration
| Matter | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Congress should consider reinstating the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004's requirement for the executive branch to report annually to appropriate committees of Congress on the amount of time required by authorized investigative and adjudicative agencies to conduct investigations, adjudicate cases, and grant initial personnel security clearances. Congress should also consider adding to this reporting requirement the amount of time required to investigate and adjudicate periodic reinvestigations and any other information deemed relevant, such as the status of the investigation backlog and implementing government-wide measures for the quality of investigations or other reform efforts. (Matter for Consideration 1) | The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (Public Law 115-91) adopted GAO's matter for congressional consideration that Congress consider reinstating the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004's security clearance reporting requirements. The final version of the bill, which was signed into law on December 12, 2017, requires the Security Executive Agent, in coordination with the Chair and other Principals of the Security, Suitability, and Credentialing Performance Accountability Council to submit an annual assessment of timeliness including: (1) average time to initiate cases, conduct investigations, and adjudicate cases as compared with established milestones; (2) number of initial investigations and periodic reinvestigations carried over from prior fiscal years by each authorized investigative and adjudicative agency; (3) number of initial investigations and periodic reinvestigations that resulted in a denial or revocation of a security clearance by each authorized adjudicative agency; (4) costs to the executive branch related to personnel security clearance initiations, investigations, adjudications, revocations, and continuous evaluation; (5) number of personnel security clearance cases, both initial investigations and periodic reinvestigations, awaiting or under investigation by the National Background Investigations Bureau; and (6) other information as appropriate, including any recommendations to improve the timeliness and efficiency of personnel security clearance initiations, investigations, and adjudications. |
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Office of the Director of National Intelligence | The Director of National Intelligence, in his capacity as Security Executive Agent, and in coordination with the other Security, Suitability, and Credentialing Performance Accountability Council Principals--the Deputy Director for Management of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in his capacity as Chair of the PAC, the Director of OPM, and the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence--should establish a milestone for the completion of government-wide performance measures for the quality of investigations. (Recommendation 1) |
ODNI stated that it did not concur with the report's conclusions and recommendations, but did not specifically state whether it did not concur with this recommendation. Since the issuance of GAO's report, ODNI has taken steps that have overcome the relevance of this recommendation. Specifically, in 2019, ODNI developed a performance measure for assessing the quality of investigations, without first having established a milestone for its completion. At this point, establishing a milestone after having developed a performance measure is no longer relevant. As a result, we are closing this recommendation as not implemented.
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| Office of the Director of National Intelligence |
Priority Rec.
The Director of National Intelligence, in his capacity as Security Executive Agent, and in coordination with the other Security, Suitability, and Credentialing Performance Accountability Council Principals--the Deputy Director for Management of OMB in his capacity as Chair of the PAC, the Director of OPM, and the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence--should conduct an evidence-based review of the investigation and adjudication timeliness objectives for completing the fastest 90 percent of initial secret and initial top secret security clearances.(Recommendation 2) |
ODNI stated that it did not concur with the report's recommendations but did not state with which recommendations it did not concur. In November 2023, ODNI and OPM issued the Federal Personnel Vetting Performance Management Standards Implementation Guidance. This guidance includes updated timeliness objectives for initial secret and initial top secret security clearances including the investigation and adjudication phases. In October 2024, ODNI officials provided additional documentation demonstrating that executive branch agencies had conducted an evidence-based review to inform the update made to the timeliness objectives in the Federal Personnel Vetting Performance Management Standards Implementation Guidance. In addition, the documentation indicated that this evidence-based review was done in response to our recommendation. The documentation stated that OPM conducted an analysis that showed about 95 percent of the time to complete the highest tier of a background investigation was due to waiting for (a) an external organization to provide information or (b) a resource to come available to work on a part of the investigation. The documentation discussed data on these wait times during each phase of the clearance process and methods to reduce those times that they used as evidence to update the timeliness objectives. For example, the documentation describes an assessment of errors subjects make completing their clearance applications and new tools the executive branch plans to implement via the National Background Investigation Services (NBIS) IT system to validate this information and identify discrepancies. In the investigation phase, the documentation discusses evidence on the decrease in the number of periodic reinvestigations performed since fiscal year 2018, which enables investigative service providers to focus resources on investigations for initial security clearances and continuous vetting, which enables the providers to devote more resources to complete the initial investigations. For adjudication, the documentation discusses evidence on the number of days that the use of electronic adjudication tools saves. These actions meet the intent of our recommendation.
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| Office of the Director of National Intelligence | The Director of National Intelligence, in his capacity as Security Executive Agent, and in coordination with the other Security, Suitability, and Credentialing Performance Accountability Council Principals--the Deputy Director for Management of OMB in his capacity as Chair of the PAC, the Director of OPM, and the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence--should develop a government-wide plan, including goals and interim milestones, to meet those timeliness objectives for initial personnel security clearance investigations and adjudications. (Recommendation 3) |
ODNI stated that it did not concur with the report's recommendations but did not state with which recommendations it did not concur. In November 2023, ODNI and OPM issued the Federal Personnel Vetting Performance Management Standards Implementation Guidance. This guidance includes updated timeliness objectives for initial secret and initial top secret security clearances including the investigation and adjudication phases. In addition, in October 2024, ODNI officials provided documentation demonstrating that executive branch agencies had developed a plan that included goals and interim milestones, to meet the revised timeliness objectives included in the Federal Personnel Vetting Performance Management Standards Implementation Guidance. In addition, a senior ODNI official stated that this evidence-based review was done in response to our recommendation. For example, the documentation explains that the future goal for the initiation phase is for individuals to complete the clearance application in seven days, regardless of investigation type and that agencies will review and release the application in three days. The executive branch plans to meet this goal via improved electronic tools in the National Background Investigation Services (NBIS) IT system to validate information applicants include and identify discrepancies, among other initiatives. Regarding the investigation, the documentation describes the revised investigation timeliness goals and that the plan to achieve those entails various initiatives including making use of lead stacking, which is a process of optimizing data collection for sources to reduce wait times. In addition, the plan discusses near term, interim, and future investigation timeliness goals. Regarding the adjudication phase, the documentation describes plans to offer adjudicators electronic tools via NBIS such as auto-populated adjudicative narratives. The documentation also discusses interim timeliness goals for the adjudication phase. These actions meet the intent of our recommendation.
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| National Background Investigations Bureau | The Director of NBIB, in coordination with the Deputy Director for Management of OMB, in the capacity as Chair of the PAC, and the Director of National Intelligence, in the capacity as Security Executive Agent, should develop a plan, including goals and milestones, that includes a determination of the effect of the business process reengineering efforts for reducing the backlog to a "healthy" inventory of work, representing approximately 6 weeks of work. (Recommendation 4) |
NBIB concurred with this recommendation. In December 2018, NBIB issued a Backlog Mitigation Plan that outlines, among other things, courses of action to decrease the backlog of background investigations and set a goal of June 2020 for returning to a "normal" inventory. The plan outlines courses of action including: identifying specific business process reengineering efforts, increasing the investigative workforce, and implementing other measures, such as changes to the clearance process, to help reduce the backlog. As of July 2019, there has been a significant reduction in the background investigation backlog. This action meets the intent of our recommendation.
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| National Background Investigations Bureau | The Director of NBIB, in coordination with the Deputy Director for Management of OMB, in the capacity as Chair of the PAC, and the Director of National Intelligence, in the capacity as Security Executive Agent, should establish goals for increasing total investigator capacity--federal employees and contractor personnel--in accordance with the plan for reducing the backlog of investigations. (Recommendation 5) |
NBIB concurred with this recommendation. In December 2018, NBIB issued a Backlog Mitigation Plan that outlines, among other things, a course of action to increase investigator capacity to eliminate the backlog and to meet future investigative demand. As of February 2019, NBIB has increased the number of investigators to 8,698 and reduced the backlog of background investigations. This action meets the intent of our recommendation.
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| National Background Investigations Bureau | The Director of NBIB should build upon NBIB's current workforce planning efforts by developing and implementing a comprehensive strategic workforce plan that focuses on what workforce and organizational needs and changes will enable the bureau to meet the current and future demand for its services. (Recommendation 6) |
NBIB concurred with this recommendation. In September 2019, NBIB issued a Strategic Workforce Plan that identified a set of initiatives to help further hiring goals and enhance employees' professional development. These initiatives included: (1) employing various hiring options such as term hires, which gives managers the flexibility to adjust hiring as the inventory is reduced and manage new employees' employment duration expectations, (2) increasing the use of different hiring authorities to expand candidate pools, (3) creating a manpower function responsible for managing manpower activities such as mission needs assessments, attrition data collection, and predictive analysis, and (4) instituting development programs to prepare for or support attrition, surge requirements, and succession planning. This action meets the intent of our recommendation.
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