DOD Personnel Clearances: Improved Annual Reporting Would Enable More Informed Congressional Oversight
Highlights
The Department of Defense (DOD) industry personnel security clearance program has long-standing delays and backlogs in completing clearance requests and difficulties in accurately projecting its future needs for investigations to be conducted by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). In 2006, Congress mandated that DOD report annually on the future requirements of the program and DOD's efforts to improve it, and that GAO evaluate DOD's first report. Specifically, GAO was required to report on (1) the extent to which the report responds to the issues in the mandate, (2) the number and cost of clearance investigations and adjudications in fiscal years 2000-2006, and (3) the extent to which DOD has developed procedures to estimate future needs, plans to reduce delays and backlogs, and plans to provide funding for the program. To accomplish these objectives, GAO obtained and reviewed laws, executive orders, policies, reports, and other documents related to the security clearance process and interviewed officials from a range of government offices concerned with the clearance process.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Defense | To improve the quality of the information that DOD provides in future reports to Congress for monitoring the security clearance process for industry personnel, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence to augment the information contained in the department's initial mandated report by adding projected funding information for additional out years so that Congress can use that input in making strategic appropriation and authorization decisions about the clearance program for industry personnel. |
Closed – Implemented
In written comments on a draft of this report, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence concurred with this recommendation. In the 2011 version of DOD's Annual Report to Congress on Personnel Security Investigations for Industry and the National Industrial Security Program, DOD included projected funding information for at least 5 fiscal years into the future.
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| Department of Defense | To improve the quality of the information that DOD provides in future reports to Congress for monitoring the security clearance process for industry personnel, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence to augment the information contained in the department's initial mandated report by, n addition to the mandated information on average delays for pending cases, providing timeliness data for the additional phases within the clearance process, to allow for greater transparency regarding which processes are working well and which need improvement. |
Closed – Implemented
In written comments on a draft of this report, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence concurred with the recommendation. In the 2011 version of DOD's Annual Report to Congress on Personnel Security Investigations for Industry and the National Industrial Security Program, DOD included timeliness information for the additional phases within the clearance process (such as, the investigation and adjudication phases) for cases closed in the previous fiscal year.
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| Department of Defense | To improve the quality of the information that DOD provides in future reports to Congress for monitoring the security clearance process for industry personnel, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence to augment the information contained in the department's initial mandated report by developing measures of quality in the clearance process and include them in future reports, to explicitly show how DOD is balancing quality and timeliness requirements in its personnel security clearance program. |
Closed – Not Implemented
In written comments on a draft of this report, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence concurred with the recommendation. However, in the 2011 version of DOD's Annual Report to Congress on Personnel Security Investigations for Industry and the National Industrial Security Program, DOD did not include quality measures for the personnel security clearance program. As a result, it is unclear whether DOD has developed such measures or not.
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