DOD Personnel Clearances
Improved Annual Reporting Would Enable More Informed Congressional Oversight Gao ID: GAO-08-350 February 13, 2008The 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.
Although DOD's first annual report responded to the issues specified in the mandate, it did not include certain important information that was available on funding, processing times, and quality. DOD's report limited the funding requirements information for its industry security clearance program to 2007 and 2008, even though the department asserted before Congress in May 2007 that it would need tens of millions of dollars in the future to maintain the infrastructure supporting the program and to cover operating costs. While DOD reported the average total time for DOD industry clearances and the average time to complete all clearance investigations, it did not include information on the time to complete any of the other phases (e.g., adjudication). GAO's September 2006 report suggested that longer delays are found in some phases of the process than in others and that quantifying those delays would be useful. The DOD report was largely silent on measures of quality in the clearance process, which is crucial if agencies are to accept the validity of clearances from other agencies. By not including these types of information, DOD limited the information available to Congress as it oversees the effectiveness of DOD's industry personnel security clearance program. GAO was unable to report the number and unit cost of investigations and adjudications for fiscal years 2000 through 2004 because data were either unavailable or insufficiently reliable. However, DOD reported that OPM conducted 81,495 and 138,769 investigations of industry personnel in fiscal years 2005 and 2006, respectively, and DOD granted clearance eligibility to 113,408 and 144,608 industry personnel in fiscal years 2005 and 2006, respectively. In estimating unit costs, DOD and OPM did not account for all factors affecting the cost of a clearance--factors that would have made the DOD-provided estimates higher. These factors included (1) the cost of special interviews that are sometimes necessary to resolve discrepancies in information and (2) that top secret clearance adjudications normally take about twice as long as those for secret/confidential clearances. DOD's procedures and plans are evolving, including procedures for projecting the number of future investigations it will need and plans to reduce backlogs and delays, as well as steps to fund the industry clearance program. In ongoing efforts to address the continued inaccuracy of its projections of future clearance needs, DOD has taken several steps. For example, DOD made its voluntary annual survey of contractors performing classified government work accessible through the Internet in 2006 and began encouraging industry staff to complete it. The response rate increased to 86 percent of industry personnel in 2007. Further, while DOD does not have its own plan to address the funding of its clearance program and its delays in processing clearances, it is currently participating in a governmentwide effort to make clearance processes more efficient and cost-effective. Streamlining and improving the efficiency of its clearance process is also one of DOD's top transformation priorities. In its 2004 report, GAO recommended that DOD implement a comprehensive plan and improve its estimates of future investigation needs.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-08-350, DOD Personnel Clearances: Improved Annual Reporting Would Enable More Informed Congressional Oversight
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Report to Congressional Committees:
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
February 2008:
DoD Personnel Clearances:
Improved Annual Reporting Would Enable More Informed Congressional
Oversight:
DOD Personnel Clearances:
GAO-08-350:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-08-350, a report to congressional committees.
Why GAO Did This Study:
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.
What GAO Found:
Although DOD‘s first annual report responded to the issues specified in
the mandate, it did not include certain important information that was
available on funding, processing times, and quality. DOD‘s report
limited the funding requirements information for its industry security
clearance program to 2007 and 2008, even though the department asserted
before Congress in May 2007 that it would need tens of millions of
dollars in the future to maintain the infrastructure supporting the
program and to cover operating costs. While DOD reported the average
total time for DOD industry clearances and the average time to complete
all clearance investigations, it did not include information on the
time to complete any of the other phases (e.g., adjudication). GAO‘s
September 2006 report suggested that longer delays are found in some
phases of the process than in others and that quantifying those delays
would be useful. The DOD report was largely silent on measures of
quality in the clearance process, which is crucial if agencies are to
accept the validity of clearances from other agencies. By not including
these types of information, DOD limited the information available to
Congress as it oversees the effectiveness of DOD‘s industry personnel
security clearance program.
GAO was unable to report the number and unit cost of investigations and
adjudications for fiscal years 2000 through 2004 because data were
either unavailable or insufficiently reliable. However, DOD reported
that OPM conducted 81,495 and 138,769 investigations of industry
personnel in fiscal years 2005 and 2006, respectively, and DOD granted
clearance eligibility to 113,408 and 144,608 industry personnel in
fiscal years 2005 and 2006, respectively. In estimating unit costs, DOD
and OPM did not account for all factors affecting the cost of a
clearance”factors that would have made the DOD-provided estimates
higher. These factors included (1) the cost of special interviews that
are sometimes necessary to resolve discrepancies in information and (2)
that top secret clearance adjudications normally take about twice as
long as those for secret/confidential clearances.
DOD‘s procedures and plans are evolving, including procedures for
projecting the number of future investigations it will need and plans
to reduce backlogs and delays, as well as steps to fund the industry
clearance program. In ongoing efforts to address the continued
inaccuracy of its projections of future clearance needs, DOD has taken
several steps. For example, DOD made its voluntary annual survey of
contractors performing classified government work accessible through
the Internet in 2006 and began encouraging industry staff to complete
it. The response rate increased to 86 percent of industry personnel in
2007. Further, while DOD does not have its own plan to address the
funding of its clearance program and its delays in processing
clearances, it is currently participating in a governmentwide effort to
make clearance processes more efficient and cost-effective.
Streamlining and improving the efficiency of its clearance process is
also one of DOD‘s top transformation priorities. In its 2004 report,
GAO recommended that DOD implement a comprehensive plan and improve its
estimates of future investigation needs.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommended that DOD augment future reports with information on
funding needs for additional future years, timeliness data on clearance
process phases in addition to the investigation (e.g., adjudication),
and measures of quality in the clearance process, to be developed. DOD
concurred with each recommendation.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
[hyperlink, http://www.GAO-08-350]. For more information, contact
Brenda Farrell at (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
DOD's Report Responded to the Mandated Issues but Did Not Include
Certain Important Data on Some Issues:
Many of DOD's Records of the Numbers and Costs of Security Clearance
Investigations and Adjudications Were Not Available or Were Considered
Unreliable:
DOD's Procedures for Projecting Future Investigation Needs and Its
Plans for Improving and Funding the Industry Clearance Program Are
Evolving:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology27:
Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense31:
Appendix III: Contact and Staff Acknowledgments34:
Related GAO Products35:
Tables:
Table 1: Underlying Factors that Contributed to the Reliability of
DOD's Data on the Numbers and Costs of Investigations and Adjudications
for Industry Personnel during Fiscal Years 2000 through 2006:
Table 2: Numbers of Clearance Investigations Completed for Industry
Personnel in Fiscal Years 2005 and 2006:
Table 3: Numbers of Clearance Adjudications Completed for Industry
Personnel in Fiscal Years 2005 and 2006:
Table 4: Estimated Costs of Investigations, Adjudications, and Total
Costs for Industry Personnel Security Clearances in Fiscal Years 2005
and 2006-Using OPM Standard and Priority Billing Rates:
Table 5: Sources Providing Documentary and/or Testimonial Evidence as a
Result of Personal or Telephonic Interviews:
Abbreviations:
CCMS: Case Control Management System:
DISCO: Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office:
DOD: Department of Defense:
DODIG: Department of Defense, Office of Inspector General:
DOHA: Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals:
DSS: Defense Security Service:
FYDP: future years defense program:
JPAS: Joint Personnel Adjudications System:
NACLC: national agency check with local agency check and credit check:
NARA: National Archives and Records Administration:
OPM: Office of Personnel Management:
OUSD(C): Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for the comptroller:
OUSD(I): Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence:
United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
February 13, 2008:
The Honorable Carl Levin:
Chairman:
The Honorable John McCain:
Ranking Member:
Committee on Armed Services:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Ike Skelton:
Chairman:
The Honorable Duncan L. Hunter:
Ranking Member:
Committee on Armed Services:
House of Representatives:
The Department of Defense's (DOD) long-standing delays and backlogs
(i.e., cases that have exceeded government timeliness requirements) in
completing clearance requests, as well as other impediments that
hindered DOD's ability to accurately estimate and eliminate its
clearance backlog, led us to begin designating DOD's personnel security
clearance program as a high-risk area in January 2005.[Footnote 1] We
have also noted that it is crucial for officials granting security
clearances to be scrupulous in their decision making because of the
potential damage to national security and foreign relations that could
result if personnel with security clearances fail to adequately
safeguard classified information. In April 2006, DOD briefly stopped
processing applications for clearance investigations for industry
personnel, attributing the stoppage to a large volume of industry
clearance requests and funding problems. In 2006, the John Warner
National Defense Authorization Act of 2007 mandated that DOD report
annually on the future requirements of the industry personnel security
clearance investigations program and that we evaluate DOD's first
report in response to this mandate.
DOD's Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
[OUSD(I)] has responsibility for determining eligibility for clearances
for servicemembers, DOD civilian employees, and industry personnel
performing work for DOD and 23 other federal agencies.[Footnote 2] That
responsibility includes obtaining background investigations, primarily
through the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Within OUSD(I), the
Defense Security Service (DSS) uses OPM-provided investigative reports
to determine clearance eligibility of industry personnel. As of May
2006, industry personnel held about one-third of the approximately 2.5
million DOD-maintained personnel security clearances. Individuals
working for private industry play a growing role in national security
work conducted by DOD and other federal agencies--as a result of the
increased awareness of threats to our national security stemming from
the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, and
increased efforts over the past decade to privatize federal jobs.
Our prior work has shown that there have been delays in processing
clearances for industry personnel. For example, in our September 2006
report, we found that industry personnel contracted to work for the
federal government waited more than 1 year on average to receive top
secret clearances. Specifically, our analysis of about 2,300 cases
showed the clearance process took an average of 446 days for initial
top secret clearances and 545 days for renewals of top secret
clearances. While the government's goal for the application-submission
phase of the process is 14 days or less, this phase took an average of
111 days.
Problems in the clearance program can negatively affect national
security. For example, delays in renewing security clearances for
personnel who are already doing classified work can lead to a
heightened risk of disclosure of classified information. In contrast,
delays in providing initial security clearances for previously
noncleared personnel can result in other negative consequences, such as
additional costs and delays in completing national security-related
contracts, lost-opportunity costs, and problems retaining the best-
qualified personnel. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention
Act of 2004[Footnote 3] provided timeliness guidelines that currently
require adjudicative agencies to make a determination on at least 80
percent of all applications for a security clearance within an average
of 120 days after the date of receipt of the application, with 90 days
for the investigation and 30 days for the adjudication. Moreover, as we
noted in our prior reports,[Footnote 4] when clearance investigations
or adjudications (determination of eligibility for a clearance) were
inadequately or inconsistently documented, DOD was unable to
demonstrate that it had fully considered all significant adverse
conditions that might call into question an individual's ability to
adequately safeguard classified information.
The John Warner National Defense Authorization Act[Footnote 5] for
Fiscal Year 2007 required DOD to include in its annual budget
submission to Congress a report on DOD's industry personnel clearance
investigations program. Specifically, the law required that DOD report
on five items: (1) the funding requirements of the investigations
program and the ability of the Secretary of Defense to fund it, (2) the
size of the investigation process backlog, (3) the length of the
average delay for an individual case pending in the investigation
process, (4) any progress made by the Secretary of Defense in
implementing planned changes in the investigation process during the 12
months preceding the report date, and (5) a determination, certified by
the Secretary of Defense, of whether the investigation process had
improved during the 12 months preceding the report date. The mandate
specified that DOD shall include this report annually in the defense
budget justification documents it submits to Congress. DOD submitted
its 2007 report on August 20, 2007, about 6 months after it submitted
its budget justification documents to Congress.
The mandate further specified that we review the initial DOD report and
provide additional information to Congress. This additional information
is the number and unit cost of each type of clearance investigation and
adjudication for industry personnel performed in fiscal years 2000
through 2006; the amount of any surcharge DOD paid to OPM for
conducting an investigation; a description of procedures DOD used to
estimate the number of investigations to be conducted annually; and a
description of DOD's plans to reduce delays and backlogs, adequately
fund the investigative process, and establish a more effective and
stable investigations program. Therefore, this letter answers the
following questions: (1) To what extent does DOD's August 2007 report
to Congress address the five issues specified in the mandate? (2) What
were the number and cost of each type of clearance investigation and
adjudication for industry personnel performed in fiscal years 2000
through 2006? (3) To what extent has DOD developed procedures to
estimate the number of investigations to be conducted; plans to reduce
delays and backlogs in the clearance program, if any; and provide
funding? This report contributes to a larger GAO body of work on DOD's
personnel security clearance program. (See the list of related GAO
products at the end of this report.)
Our scope was limited to industry personnel whose clearance
investigations or adjudications occurred in fiscal year 2000 or later
and were the responsibility of OUSD(I). For all three questions, we
reviewed laws, executive orders, and policies related to top secret,
secret, and confidential security clearance investigations and
adjudications. Those sources provided most of the criteria we used to
assess the DOD report on personnel security clearances for industry and
for the data and planning we examined to address our other two
researchable questions. We gained additional insights about causes and
effects to explain our findings from reports (e.g., GAO and DOD Office
of the Inspector General) and documentary and testimonial evidence from
interviews we conducted with personnel associated with a variety of
government offices: OUSD(I), DSS, DOD's adjudication facilities for
industry personnel clearances, the Office of the Under Secretary of
Defense for the Comptroller [OUSD(C)], and DOD's Personnel Security
Research Center. To determine the extent to which DOD's report to
Congress addressed the five issues specified in Public Law 109-364
(Sec. 347), we compared the findings in the DOD report to the mandated
requirements and governmentwide and DOD-wide data quality standards. To
determine the number and cost of each type of clearance work performed
for industry personnel in fiscal years 2000 through 2006, we obtained
and analyzed investigations-related data from DSS and OUSD(C), as well
as adjudications-related data from DOD's two adjudication facilities
for industry personnel clearances. When we assessed the reliability of
the data pertaining to numbers and costs of investigations and
adjudications, we found that some of the information was not available,
could not be assessed, or contained discrepancies when compared with
data from other sources. Since the data for fiscal years 2000 through
2004 were not sufficiently reliable, we have reported numbers and costs
for only fiscal years 2005 and 2006, which were sufficiently reliable
for the purposes of this report. To determine the extent to which DOD
has implemented plans to make its clearance program more effective and
stable by better estimating the numbers of industry clearances needed,
reducing delays and backlogs, and providing adequate funding, we
reviewed planning documentation that OUSD(I) and DSS officials
provided. Additional information on our scope and methodology is
presented in appendix I. We conducted this performance audit from May
2007 through February 2008 in accordance with generally accepted
government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and
perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide
a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions, based on our audit
objectives. We believe that the evidence we obtained provides a
reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit
objectives.
Results in Brief:
While DOD responded in its first annual report to the issues specified
in the mandate, it did not include certain important information that
was available on funding, times to complete some phases of the
clearance process, and quality. In its report, DOD included sections
addressing the funding requirements of the personnel security clearance
program for industry, and the numbers of initial and renewal
investigations for top secret and secret/confidential clearances that
were overdue as of July 14, 2007. It also included descriptions of
seven actions taken that DOD characterized as progress in the industry
clearance program, such as efforts to improve timeliness that are DOD-
specific (e.g., adding a capability to electronically submit the
applicant's form authorizing the release of medical information) or
governmentwide (e.g., submitting all requests for clearance using OPM's
Electronic Questionnaires for Investigations Processing). However, for
three issues, DOD stated in the report that certain important
information was available but not included. First, DOD provided
information on funding requirements as mandated, but limited the
information to 2007 and 2008. Additional funding information was not
included, even though the DSS Director testified to Congress in May
2007 that tens of millions of dollars would be needed in the future to
maintain the infrastructure supporting the industry personnel security
clearance program, in addition to the funding to conduct the
investigations for the clearances themselves. DOD regularly submits
longer-term financial planning documents, such as its future years
defense program, to Congress. Second, although DOD reported the average
end-to-end processing time for DOD industry clearances and the average
time to complete investigations for all clearances, it did not include
the average time to complete other phases of the clearance process,
such as the adjudication. As our September 2006 report showed, longer
delays are found in some phases of the process than in others.[Footnote
6] Providing the times to complete other phases of the clearance
process in the report would help to highlight where those delays are
occurring. Finally, while DOD identified several improvements that it
had made to the clearance process, it was largely silent on measures to
assess quality in the clearance process. In our September 2006 report,
we identified concerns with quality in the clearance process and noted
that the lack of full reciprocity of clearances--when a security
clearance granted by one government agency is not accepted by another
agency--is an outgrowth of agencies' concerns that other agencies may
have granted clearances based on inadequate investigations and
adjudications. The OUSD(I) Director of Security and the DSS Director
told us that several factors influenced their decision not to include
these types of information in the DOD report. For example, because
information used to project the funding requirements for this program
has less accuracy the farther into the future projections are made, DOD
decided not to include future funding requirements beyond 1 year. In
deciding not to include certain available information in its report to
Congress, DOD limited the information available to Congress as it
oversees the effectiveness of DOD's industry personnel security
clearance program.
We were unable to report the number and unit cost of investigations and
adjudications for fiscal years 2000 through 2004, because our data
requests and analyses revealed that the information was either
unavailable or insufficiently reliable for us to report. However, DOD
reported that OPM provided 81,495 and 138,769 clearance investigations
on industry personnel in fiscal years 2005 and 2006, respectively; and
DOD staff granted clearance eligibility to 113,408 industry personnel
in fiscal year 2005 and 144,608 industry personnel in fiscal year
2006.[Footnote 7] No reliable information is available for fiscal years
2000 through 2004 for reasons including the fact that an electronic
database for investigative and adjudicative information was
discontinued. While we were able to report DOD's estimated unit costs
of security clearances for fiscal years 2005 and 2006, three factors
suggest that the actual unit costs would be higher than the estimates
we reported if OPM and DOD were to account for all costs. First, DOD's
estimated unit cost for an investigation (e.g., $3,840 for an initial
top secret clearance in fiscal year 2006) did not include the expense
of special interviews that are sometimes conducted to resolve
conflicting information that has arisen in the investigation. Second,
DOD's estimated unit cost did not account for a partial refund of about
$7 million--made to DOD in September 2006--of a surcharge DOD paid OPM
for all DOD investigations conducted in fiscal years 2005 and 2006.
Third, determining the actual unit cost of adjudications for fiscal
years 2005 and 2006 would require accounting for several factors that
DOD did not include in the data it provided to us. For example, while
DSS provided an estimate for the unit cost of adjudications, officials
acknowledged that this estimate was rough because, among other things,
it did not account for the fact that adjudications for top secret
clearances normally take about twice as long as those for secret/
confidential clearances.
DOD's procedures for projecting the number of investigations it will
need OPM to conduct in the future and its plans to reduce backlogs and
delays as well as steps for funding the industry clearance program are
evolving. DOD has had problems projecting its departmentwide clearance
needs accurately in the past. For example, OPM reported that DOD
exceeded its departmentwide projection by 59 percent for the first half
of fiscal year 2006. To address these problems, DOD has recently made
changes to the methods it uses to estimate the number of future
security clearance investigations it needs, and it continues efforts to
improve these methods. First, starting in 2006, DSS made its annual
survey accessible through the Internet to make it easier for
contractors to report estimates of how many initial and renewal
clearances they would need in the future. Second, DSS field staff made
a more concerted effort to actively encourage industry representatives
to complete the voluntary survey. These changes increased the survey
response rate from historically low rates of between 10 and 15 percent
of the surveyed facilities providing information to 70 percent of
facilities in 2007, which represented 86 percent of industry personnel
with a clearance. Third, DSS began performing weekly updates to the
investigation projection analysis rather than relying on a onetime
annual projection of investigation needs. Fourth, DSS made additional
changes to the methodology it uses to analyze the survey data it
collects--including accounting for additional variables, such as the
size of the responding company. DOD's Personnel Security Research
Center is also researching the feasibility of replacing or
supplementing the survey method DSS currently uses with a statistical
model for estimating future investigation needs. Although DOD currently
has no comprehensive plan to address delays and funding in its
clearance program, DSS had been developing such a plan when its effort
was supplanted by a new governmentwide effort led by an interagency
security clearance process reform. At the same time, OMB, DOD, and
other agencies have been focusing attention on making the clearance
process more efficient and cost-effective across the federal
government. Streamlining the security clearance process is also one of
DOD's top transformation priorities, with the goal of facilitating the
granting of personnel security clearances in the shortest time possible
and at the lowest possible cost. However, we reported in 2004 that DOD
was operating in a reactive mode to improve its clearance program,
working piecemeal in response to impediments in the absence of a
comprehensive plan to reduce delays. Because DOD has not developed a
comprehensive plan to address delays in the industry security clearance
program, we continue to believe that our 2004[Footnote 8]
recommendations that DOD develop such a plan and improve its
projections of clearance requirements have merit.
In order to provide Congress with more information for its oversight of
security clearances for industry personnel, we are recommending that in
DOD's future annual reports, OUSD(I) (1) add projected funding
information for additional out years consistent with the future years
defense program, (2) provide information on the average time taken to
complete each of the phases of the clearance process, and (3) develop
and include measures of clearance quality. In its agency comments,
OUSD(I) concurred with all three of our recommendations. OUSD(I) noted
that DOD agrees the recommended additional information will aid
Congress in its oversight role and its future annual reports--starting
in 2009--will include the suggested information. DOD's comments are
reprinted in appendix II.
Background:
DOD obtains nearly all of its clearance investigations through
OPM,[Footnote 9] which is currently responsible for 90 percent of the
personnel security clearance investigations for the federal government.
DOD retained responsibility for adjudicating clearances of
servicemembers, DOD civilians, and industry personnel. Two DOD offices
are responsible for adjudicating cases involving industry personnel.
The Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office (DISCO) within DSS
adjudicates cases that contain only favorable information or minor
issues regarding security concerns (e.g., some overseas travel by the
individual). The Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA) within
the Defense Legal Agency adjudicates cases that contain major security
issues (e.g., an individual's unexplained affluence or criminal
history) which could result in the denial of clearance eligibility and
possibly lead to an appeal.
Like servicemembers and federal workers, industry personnel must obtain
a security clearance to gain access to classified information, which is
categorized into three levels: top secret, secret, and confidential.
The level of classification denotes the degree of protection required
for information and the amount of damage that unauthorized disclosure
could reasonably be expected to cause to national security. For top
secret information, the expected damage that unauthorized disclosure
could reasonably be expected to cause is "exceptionally grave damage;"
for secret information, it is "serious damage;" and for confidential
information, it is "damage."[Footnote 10]
DOD's Report Responded to the Mandated Issues but Did Not Include
Certain Important Data on Some Issues:
DOD provided information on each issue specified by the mandate, but
certain important information on funding, processing times, and quality
was limited or absent. DOD divided its nine-page report into five
sections, corresponding to the five sections of the law. DOD began with
a discussion of the personnel security clearance investigation funding
requirements--$178 million for fiscal year 2007 and approximately $300
million for fiscal year 2008--and indicated that funds exist to cover
the fiscal year 2007 projected costs.[Footnote 11] In section two, DOD
reported the size of the investigative backlog by showing that 21,817
(48 percent) of the applications for clearance investigations for
industry personnel which were still pending as of July 14, 2007, were
more than 90 days old. In section three, DOD reported OPM statistics
that showed the average number of days required to complete
investigations as of May 2007.[Footnote 12] An initial top secret
clearance took an average of 211 days; top secret renewals, an average
of 334 days; and all secret/confidential initials and renewals, an
average of 127 days.[Footnote 13] The fourth section of DOD's report
highlighted seven areas that DOD characterized as progress toward
implementing planned changes in the process. These areas included
timeliness-improvement actions that were DOD-specific (e.g., adding a
capability to electronically submit the applicant's form authorizing
the release of medical information) and governmentwide (e.g.,
submitting all requests for clearances using OPM's Electronic
Questionnaires for Investigations Processing). In the fifth section,
the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence certified that the
department had taken actions to improve the industry personnel
clearance program during the 12 months preceding the report
date.[Footnote 14] DOD supported this finding by including a table
showing that the monthly average number of completed industry
investigations increased from 13,227 in July 2006 to 16,495 in July
2007.
Certain important information on three of the mandated issues--the
program funding requirements, the average processing time, and quality
in the clearance process--was limited or absent. First, DOD reported
program-funding requirements covering less than 2 years. DOD reported
an annualized projected cost of $178.2 million for fiscal year
2007,[Footnote 15] a projected funding requirement of approximately
$300 million for fiscal year 2008, and a department statement
indicating that it was able to fund the industry personnel security
clearance program for the remainder of 2007. The mandate directed DOD
to report its funding requirements for the program and the Secretary of
Defense's ability to fulfill them. While the report described DOD's
immediate needs and ability to fund those needs, it did not include
information on (1) the funding requirements for fiscal year 2009 and
beyond, even though the survey used to develop the funding requirements
asked contractors about their clearance needs through 2010; and (2) the
tens of millions of dollars that the DSS Director testified to Congress
in May 2007 were necessary to maintain the infrastructure supporting
the industry security clearance program. The OUSD(I) Director of
Security and the DSS Director told us that the department did not
include funding requirements beyond fiscal year 2008 because of
concerns about the accuracy of the data used to identify the
requirements. They told us that the funding requirements of the program
depend on the estimates of the future number of investigations that DSS
will obtain from OPM, which DSS determines using its annual survey.
They, as well as the report, indicated that because projections made
farther into the future are more likely to be inaccurate, DOD decided
not to include funding projections beyond 1 future year in the report.
The report also stated that the data used to construct the projected
funding requirements are available through fiscal year 2010, but the
report did not include that information. DOD regularly submits longer-
term financial planning documents to Congress. Specifically, the future
years defense program (FYDP), which is submitted annually to Congress,
contains detailed data projections for the budget year in which funds
are being requested and at least the 4 succeeding years. The FYDP is a
long-term capital plan and as such provides DOD and Congress with a
tool for looking at future funding needs beyond immediate budget
priorities.
Second, DOD reported the average investigation times cited earlier but
did not include the times for other specific phases of the end-to-end
clearance process. DOD reported the average number of days it took to
complete investigations for all clearances closed between May 2006 and
May 2007 and the average numbers of days to process DOD industry
clearances from end to end for all cases adjudicated during the first 6
months of fiscal year 2007. The mandate directed DOD to report the
length of the average delay for an individual case pending in the
personnel security clearance investigation process. The Intelligence
Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 requires the processing of
at least 80 percent of clearances to be completed within an average of
120 days, including no more than 90 days for the investigation.
Although it did not provide times for other clearance phases and was
not mandated to do so, DOD's report stated that a joint study conducted
by OPM, DSS, and industry identified average times to complete six
discrete phases--including the investigation, the time needed to mail
investigation reports from OPM to a DOD adjudication facility, and the
adjudication. Our September 2006 report[Footnote 16] showed that longer
delays are found in some phases of the process than in others (e.g.,
our analysis of 2,259 cases showed that the application-submission
phase took an average of 111 days to complete instead of the goal of 14
days) and suggested that monitoring each of the phases would help DOD
to identify where actions are needed to improve timeliness. The OUSD(I)
Director of Security and the DSS Director told us that because the DOD
report included both the average time to complete an investigation and
the time to process the clearance from start to finish, the department
did not include the times to process the additional discrete phases of
the clearance process. While the information included in the report
provides visibility to the processing times for the investigation and
for the entire process, monitoring and reporting times for each phase
would help DOD and Congress to identify where actions are most needed
to improve timeliness.
Third, DOD documented improvements in the process but was largely
silent regarding quality in the clearance processes. While DOD
described several changes to the process it characterized as progress,
it provided little information on measures of quality used to assess
the clearance processes or procedures to promote quality during
clearance investigations and adjudications processes. Specifically, the
DOD report's section describing improvements noted that DSS, DOD's
adjudicative community, and OPM are gathering and analyzing measures of
quality for the clearance processes that could be used to provide the
national security community with a better product. However, the DOD
report did not include any of those measures. When we asked the OUSD(I)
Director of Security why the measures of quality were not included, he
said the department did not include them because stakeholders in the
clearance processes have not agreed on how to measure quality. In
September 2006, we identified several areas where OPM-supplied
investigative reports and DOD adjudicative data were incomplete. We
noted that while eliminating delays in the clearance process is an
important goal, the government cannot afford to achieve that goal by
providing reports of investigations and adjudications that are
incomplete in key areas. We additionally noted that the lack of full
reciprocity of clearances--when a security clearance granted by one
government agency is not accepted by another agency--is an outgrowth of
agencies' concerns that other agencies may have granted clearances
based on inadequate investigations and adjudications.
In deciding not to provide certain important information in its first
annual report to Congress, DOD has limited the information available to
Congress as it oversees the effectiveness of DOD's industry personnel
security clearance processes. Specifically, by not including funding
requirements for 2009 and beyond, DOD left out information Congress
could use in making longer-term appropriation and authorization
decisions for this program. In addition, by not including the times to
complete phases of the clearance process other than the investigation,
DOD makes it less apparent to Congress where the most significant
timeliness gains can be made relative to the costs of improving the
processes. Finally, by not including measures of quality in the
clearance processes, DOD has only partially supported its assertion
that it has made improvements to the clearance processes.
Many of DOD's Records of the Numbers and Costs of Security Clearance
Investigations and Adjudications Were Not Available or Were Considered
Unreliable:
DOD reported that OPM conducted 81,495 investigations for the
department in fiscal year 2005 and 138,769 in fiscal year 2006 and that
DOD staff granted clearance eligibility to 113,408 industry personnel
in fiscal year 2005 and 144,608 industry personnel in fiscal year 2006.
However, we are unable to report the numbers and unit costs of
investigations and adjudications for industry personnel for fiscal
years 2000 through 2004, because DOD either was not able to provide
data or supplied data that we found to be insufficiently reliable to
report. Reliable information for fiscal years 2000 through 2004 was not
available because of factors such as the abandonment of an electronic
database for recording investigative and adjudicative information.
Although some limitations are present for the numbers and costs data
for industry personnel for fiscal years 2005 and 2006, our assessments
show that they are sufficiently reliable for us to report them, along
with explicit statements about their limitations.
DOD Could Not Provide Sufficiently Reliable Information on the Numbers
and Costs of Investigations and Adjudications for Fiscal Years 2000
through 2004:
Our assessments of data on the numbers and costs of investigations and
adjudications for industry personnel for fiscal years 2000 through 2004
showed that DOD-provided information was not sufficiently reliable for
us to report. The shaded portion of table 1 summarizes underlying
factors that contributed to DOD's inability to provide us with reliable
data. (In the next section, we report information provided to us by DOD
on the numbers and costs of investigations and adjudications for fiscal
years 2005 and 2006).
Table 1: Underlying Factors that Contributed to the Reliability of
DOD's Data on the Numbers and Costs of Investigations and Adjudications
for Industry Personnel during Fiscal Years 2000 through 2006A:
Fiscal year: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004;
Type of information assessed for data reliability: Number of
investigations: The former investigations database--the Case Control
Management System--is no longer operational; and paper summary reports
and other records maintained by different DOD offices show
discrepancies in the numbers of investigations completed for these 5
fiscal years;
Type of information assessed for data reliability: Number of
adjudications: DOD did not designate the Joint Personnel Adjudications
System as the official DOD-wide adjudications database until February
2005. Previously, adjudication data for industry clearances were stored
in the Case Control Management System, which is no longer operational;
Type of information assessed for data reliability: Cost of
investigations: DOD transferred its investigative function and 1,800
authorized positions to OPM in February 2005. The transfer resulted in
lost or misplaced records and reduced institutional knowledge in DSS's
financial management office;
Type of information assessed for data reliability: Cost of
adjudications: Neither of the DOD adjudication facilities--DISCO nor
DOHA--can separate out industry adjudication costs from other expenses
in its budget.
Fiscal year: 2005;
Type of information assessed for data reliability: Number of
investigations: DOD provided OPM data that have been generated since
OPM began supplying the clearance investigations for industry personnel
in fiscal year 2005;
Type of information assessed for data reliability: Number of
adjudications: DOD provided information from the Joint Personnel
Adjudication System;
Type of information assessed for data reliability: Cost of
investigations: DOD provided rate information showing the amount OPM
charged the department for each type of clearance investigation;
Type of information assessed for data reliability: Cost of
adjudications: DOD estimated the cost information for this report by
examining DSS expenditures and the numbers of adjudications performed.
Fiscal year: 2006.
Source: GAO analysis of DOD data.
[A] The shaded portions of table 1 summarize underlying factors that
contributed to DOD's inability to provide us with reliable data.
[End of table]
When we assessed the reliability of DOD-provided information on the
numbers of investigations for industry personnel, we found
discrepancies in the fiscal years 2000 through 2004 summary records
kept by two DOD offices: DSS and OUSD(C). The discrepancies in the
annual numbers of investigations ranged from 3 to 48 percent. Relative
to the numbers found in DSS records, OUSD(C) records showed 3 percent
more investigations for secret clearances had been completed in fiscal
year 2001 and 48 percent fewer investigations for initial top secret
investigations had been completed in fiscal year 2000. The original
source of data for both offices' records was DOD's Case Control
Management System (CCMS), which had formerly been used to
electronically store data on DOD personnel security clearance
investigations. DOD stopped maintaining CCMS in conjunction with the
department's transfer of DSS's investigative functions and personnel to
OPM in February 2005. DOD estimated that it could save $100 million
over 5 years in costs associated with maintaining and updating CCMS by
instead using OPM's Personnel Investigations Processing System for
electronically storing investigations data. Because CCMS is no longer
available, we were unable to determine which--if either--office's data
were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report. While DOD
no longer has access to the CCMS software tool needed to aggregate the
associated personnel security clearance data, individual files on
industry personnel have been archived and are available for access
(e.g., when someone renews a clearance).
We are similarly unable to report the number of adjudications for
fiscal years 2000 through 2004, because DOD could not provide
information that was sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this
report. Sufficiently reliable data were not available for this period
because the Joint Personnel Adjudications System (JPAS) did not become
the official DOD adjudication database until February 2005. In the
prior years, DSS had stored adjudication-related information on
industry personnel in CCMS--which is no longer operational. A DSS
official indicated that JPAS provides pre-2005 adjudication information
inaccurately because of problems DOD experienced when transitioning
from CCMS to JPAS.
We found cost data on industry personnel clearances for fiscal years
2000 through 2004 to be insufficiently reliable, as evidenced by the
inconsistency of the information that we obtained from DSS and OUSD(C).
At the most extreme, the DSS records show that the cost for an
investigation of a secret clearance in fiscal year 2004 was 486 percent
higher than the rate reported in OUSD(C) records. DOD's ability to
provide us with more reliable information was hampered by two factors.
First, when DOD transferred its investigative function and 1,800
authorized positions to OPM in February 2005, the transfer resulted in
lost or misplaced records and reduced institutional knowledge in DSS's
financial management office. The DSS Director told us that DSS record
keeping has not been a "strong suit" of the agency in the past. Second,
DSS leadership has frequently changed over the past 5 years. For
example, DSS had four acting directors in the 4 years before getting
its current permanent Director, and it had nine comptrollers during the
same period.
The unit cost for adjudications for fiscal years 2000 through 2004 for
industry personnel clearances could not be computed, because the total
cost of all adjudications and the number of adjudications--key
variables in computing unit cost--were either unavailable or
unreliable. For example, DSS officials told us that the budget records
for this period did not differentiate the portion of DSS's budget used
to fund DISCO, which adjudicates the majority of DOD's clearances for
industry. Additionally, officials from DOHA, which adjudicates some
industry cases, told us that they similarly could not accurately
identify a unit cost for adjudications. DOHA officials told us that
because their adjudicators conduct additional work besides security
clearance work and those costs are not accounted for separately,
estimates of the unit cost of the adjudicative work they perform would
be speculative. Finally, as we discussed above, the data that DOD
provided on the number of adjudications for 2000 through 2004 were not
sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this audit.
DOD Provided Sufficiently Reliable Data on the Numbers and Costs of
Investigations and Adjudications for Fiscal Years 2005 and 2006:
DOD reported that OPM conducted 81,495 investigations of industry
personnel for the department in fiscal year 2005 and 138,769 such
investigations in 2006 (see table 2). The difference in the numbers of
investigations for the 2 years is due largely to the fact that DOD
could not provide reliable information on the number of investigations
that DSS completed before the February transfer of investigative staff
and functions to OPM. In both years, OPM provided DOD with more
investigations for secret or confidential clearances than for top
secret clearances. More secret/confidential clearances are historically
required and performed as compared to top secret clearances, and data
presented in table 2 are consistent with this trend.
Table 2: Numbers of Clearance Investigations Completed for Industry
Personnel in Fiscal Years 2005 and 2006:
Fiscal year: 2005;
Top secret: initial & renewal: 16,397[B];
Secret/ confidential:[A] initial & renewal: 65,098[B];
Total: 81,495[B].
Fiscal year: 2006;
Top secret: initial & renewal: 38,113;
Secret/ confidential:[A] initial & renewal: 100,656;
Total: 138,769.
Source: GAO analysis of OPM data provided by DOD.
[A] The same type of investigation is used for determining both secret
and confidential clearances.
[B] The numbers for fiscal year 2005 include only those investigations
that OPM conducted. That is, information on investigations of industry
personnel that DSS personnel completed before the February 2005
transfer was not available.
[End of table]
Using OPM-provided data, DSS determined that it had granted clearance
eligibility to 113,408 industry personnel in fiscal year 2005 and
144,608 industry personnel in fiscal year 2006 (see table 3). The
number of clearances granted in a year may not match the number of
investigations conducted in that year because of the time that elapses
between completion of the investigation and completion of the
adjudication.
Table 3: Numbers of Clearance Adjudications Completed for Industry
Personnel in Fiscal Years 2005 and 2006:
Fiscal year: 2005;
Top secret: initial & renewal: 36,038;
Secret/ confidential:[A[INITIAL & RENEWAL] wal: 77,370;
Total: 113,408.
Fiscal year: 2006;
Top secret: initial & renewal: 40,477;
Secret/ confidential:[A[INITIAL & RENEWAL] wal: 104,131;
Total: 144,608.
Source: GAO analysis of OPM data provided by DOD.
[A] Secret and confidential clearances are included together because
the clearance-eligibility determinations are generated from a single
type of investigation, which generates less information than the
investigative report required to determine eligibility for a top secret
clearance.
[End of table]
For the 2 most recent of the 7 fiscal years specified in the mandate,
the total estimated unit cost for the entire clearance process varied
from $290 for an initial or a renewal of a secret/confidential
clearance to $3,850 for the initial top secret clearance that is
determined with a standard investigation (see table 4). The lower half
of table 4 shows that investigations that are given higher priorities
cost more.
Table 4: Estimated Costs of Investigations, Adjudications, and Total
Costs for Industry Personnel Security Clearances in Fiscal Years 2005
and 2006-Using OPM Standard and Priority Billing Rates:
Type of process used to determine clearance eligibility: OPM standard
billing rates for DOD: Initial top secret;
Fiscal year 2005: DOD investigation cost: OPM standard billing rates
for DOD: $3,000;
Fiscal year 2005: Surcharge: OPM standard billing rates for DOD: $750;
Fiscal year 2005: Adjudication unit cost[A]: $100;
Fiscal year 2005: Total unit cost: $3,850;
Fiscal year 2006: DOD investigation cost: $3,150;
Fiscal year 2006: Surcharge: $600;
Fiscal year 2006: Adjudication unit cost[A]: $90;
Fiscal year 2006: Total unit cost: $3,840.
Type of process used to determine clearance eligibility: OPM standard
billing rates for DOD: Renewal of top secret;
Fiscal year 2005: DOD investigation cost: OPM standard billing rates
for DOD: $1,825;
Fiscal year 2005: Surcharge: OPM standard billing rates for DOD: $735;
Fiscal year 2005: Adjudication unit cost[A]: $100;
Fiscal year 2005: Total unit cost: $2,660;
Fiscal year 2006: DOD investigation cost: $2,050;
Fiscal year 2006: Surcharge: $510;
Fiscal year 2006: Adjudication unit cost[A]: $90;
Fiscal year 2006: Total unit cost: $2,650.
Type of process used to determine clearance eligibility: OPM standard
billing rates for DOD: Renewal of top secret, using the phased periodic
reinvestigation;
Fiscal year 2005: DOD investigation cost: OPM standard billing rates
for DOD: N/A ;
Fiscal year 2005: Surcharge: OPM standard billing rates for DOD: N/A;
Fiscal year 2005: Adjudication unit cost[A]: N/A ;
Fiscal year 2005: Total unit cost: N/A ;
Fiscal year 2006: DOD investigation cost: $1,625;
Fiscal year 2006: Surcharge: $310;
Fiscal year 2006: Adjudication unit cost[A]: $90;
Fiscal year 2006: Total unit cost: $2,025.
Type of process used to determine clearance eligibility: OPM standard
billing rates for DOD: Renewal of top secret, using an expanded phased
periodic reinvestigation;
Fiscal year 2005: DOD investigation cost: OPM standard billing rates
for DOD: N/A ;
Fiscal year 2005: Surcharge: OPM standard billing rates for DOD: N/A;
Fiscal year 2005: Adjudication unit cost[A]: N/A ;
Fiscal year 2005: Total unit cost: N/A ;
Fiscal year 2006: DOD investigation cost: $1,075;
Fiscal year 2006: Surcharge: $205;
Fiscal year 2006: Adjudication unit cost[A]: $90;
Fiscal year 2006: Total unit cost: $1,370.
Type of process used to determine clearance eligibility: OPM standard
billing rates for DOD: Initial and renewal of secret and confidential;
Fiscal year 2005: DOD investigation cost: OPM standard billing rates
for DOD: $125;
Fiscal year 2005: Surcharge: OPM standard billing rates for DOD: $75;
Fiscal year 2005: Adjudication unit cost[A]: $100;
Fiscal year 2005: Total unit cost: $300;
Fiscal year 2006: DOD investigation cost: $131;
Fiscal year 2006: Surcharge: $69;
Fiscal year 2006: Adjudication unit cost[A]: $90;
Fiscal year 2006: Total unit cost: $290.
Type of process used to determine clearance eligibility: OPM priority
billing rates for DOD: Initial top secret;
Fiscal year 2005: DOD investigation cost: OPM standard billing rates
for DOD: $3,480;
Fiscal year 2005: Surcharge: OPM standard billing rates for DOD: $870;
Fiscal year 2005: Adjudication unit cost[A]: $100;
Fiscal year 2005: Total unit cost: $4,450;
Fiscal year 2006: DOD investigation cost: $3,655;
Fiscal year 2006: Surcharge: $695;
Fiscal year 2006: Adjudication unit cost[A]: $90;
Fiscal year 2006: Total unit cost: $4,440.
Type of process used to determine clearance eligibility: OPM priority
billing rates for DOD: Renewal of top secret;
Fiscal year 2005: DOD investigation cost: OPM standard billing rates
for DOD: $2,125;
Fiscal year 2005: Surcharge: OPM standard billing rates for DOD: $850;
Fiscal year 2005: Adjudication unit cost[A]: $100;
Fiscal year 2005: Total unit cost: $3,075;
Fiscal year 2006: DOD investigation cost: $2,375;
Fiscal year 2006: Surcharge: $600;
Fiscal year 2006: Adjudication unit cost[A]: $90;
Fiscal year 2006: Total unit cost: $3,065.
Type of process used to determine clearance eligibility: OPM priority
billing rates for DOD: Renewal of top secret, using the phased periodic
reinvestigation;
Fiscal year 2005: DOD investigation cost: OPM standard billing rates
for DOD: N/A ;
Fiscal year 2005: Surcharge: OPM standard billing rates for DOD: N/A;
Fiscal year 2005: Adjudication unit cost[A]: N/A ;
Fiscal year 2005: Total unit cost: N/A ;
Fiscal year 2006: DOD investigation cost: $1,900;
Fiscal year 2006: Surcharge: $360;
Fiscal year 2006: Adjudication unit cost[A]: $90;
Fiscal year 2006: Total unit cost: $2,350.
Type of process used to determine clearance eligibility: OPM priority
billing rates for DOD: Renewal of top secret, using an expanded phased
periodic reinvestigation;
Fiscal year 2005: DOD investigation cost: OPM standard billing rates
for DOD: N/A ;
Fiscal year 2005: Surcharge: OPM standard billing rates for DOD: N/A;
Fiscal year 2005: Adjudication unit cost[A]: N/A ;
Fiscal year 2005: Total unit cost: N/A ;
Fiscal year 2006: DOD investigation cost: $1,075;
Fiscal year 2006: Surcharge: $425;
Fiscal year 2006: Adjudication unit cost[A]: $90;
Fiscal year 2006: Total unit cost: $1,590.
Type of process used to determine clearance eligibility: OPM priority
billing rates for DOD: Initial and renewal of secret and confidential;
Fiscal year 2005: DOD investigation cost: OPM standard billing rates
for DOD: $195;
Fiscal year 2005: Surcharge: OPM standard billing rates for DOD: $50;
Fiscal year 2005: Adjudication unit cost[A]: $100;
Fiscal year 2005: Total unit cost: $345;
Fiscal year 2006: DOD investigation cost: $205;
Fiscal year 2006: Surcharge: $40;
Fiscal year 2006: Adjudication unit cost[A]: $90;
Fiscal year 2006: Total unit cost: $335.
Source: OPM data provided by DOD.
[A] Adjudication unit cost has been rounded from DOD's estimate of
$98.20 for fiscal year 2005 and $87.51 for fiscal year 2006.
[End of table]
Regardless of whether the clearance was based on a standard or priority
investigation, the primary reason for the difference in costs is due to
the effort required to complete the different types of investigations.
For example, our September 2006 report[Footnote 17] noted that OPM
estimated that approximately 60 total staff hours are needed for each
investigation for an initial top secret clearance and 6 total staff
hours are needed for each investigation to support a secret or
confidential clearance. Another factor that causes variability in the
cost of the clearance determination is whether investigators can use a
phased reinvestigation. Starting in fiscal year 2006, the President
authorized the use of phased reinvestigations, which do not require
some types of information to be gathered during the renewal of a top
secret clearance unless there are potentially derogatory issues found
in earlier portions of the reinvestigation.
While the information in table 4 provides the estimated unit costs of
investigations and adjudications and estimated total costs, several
considerations suggest that the actual unit costs would be somewhat
different from those shown in the table if OPM and DOD were to account
for all of the costs. For example, the fixed costs for the
investigations do not include any additional costs that DOD might incur
should adverse information be revealed that requires an additional
subject interview to address this information. In these instances, OPM
charges DOD for an additional interview to resolve the issue before the
case is adjudicated. In addition, if DOD sends an investigation report
back to OPM with a request for additional interviews in order to
reconcile conflicting information, there may be additional fees. DOD
officials stated that cases requiring subsequent resolution of multiple
issues could result in additional charges to address each issue. These
special interviews cost $515 in 2005 and $430 in 2006. DOD was unable
to provide data identifying the number of investigations that included
these special interviews. Conversely, the 2006 investigation costs do
not address a $7 million refund that OPM made to DOD in September 2006;
the refund pertained to a surcharge covering all DOD investigations
that DOD had paid to OPM.
In fiscal years 2005 and 2006, DOD paid OPM a surcharge in addition to
the base rate OPM charged DOD to conduct investigations. The surcharge
amounts were 25 percent in fiscal year 2005 and 19 percent in fiscal
year 2006. DOD and OPM agreed to this surcharge in a memorandum of
understanding that defined the terms of the transfer of the
investigative functions and personnel from DSS to OPM. This surcharge
was intended to offset any potential operating losses that OPM incurred
in taking over the investigative function from DSS. However,
disagreements between DOD and OPM about the amount of the surcharge led
to mediation between the agencies in September 2006 and resulted in a
retroactive reduction of the surcharge to 14 percent for the third
quarter of fiscal year 2006 and an elimination of the surcharge for
fiscal year 2007 and beyond.[Footnote 18]
The unit costs of the adjudications--$100 in fiscal year 2005 and $90
in fiscal year 2006--are approximations that must be viewed with some
caution. DOD officials acknowledged that while they provided a single
value for the unit cost of both top secret and secret/confidential
adjudications, the actual time to adjudicate top secret clearance-
eligibility determinations is roughly twice that required to adjudicate
secret/confidential clearance-eligibility determinations. Furthermore,
the DOD-supplied unit cost estimate for adjudications does not account
for the cost associated with the additional work required to adjudicate
derogatory information in some of the cases that are sent to DOHA.
Prior to 2005, DSS had not differentiated the adjudication portion of
its budget from other functions in its budget.
DOD's Procedures for Projecting Future Investigation Needs and Its
Plans for Improving and Funding the Industry Clearance Program Are
Evolving:
Changes are occurring in the way in which DOD estimates its future
investigations needs, as well as its plans and funding for modifying
the personnel security clearance program for industry personnel. The
procedures for estimating the numbers of clearance investigations
needed annually for industry personnel are being revised in an attempt
to improve the accuracy of those estimates. Similarly, DOD is not
pursuing DOD-specific planning for reducing backlogs and delays as well
as steps to adequately fund its clearance process but instead is
participating in governmentwide planning efforts to improve clearance
processes.
DOD's Method for Estimating the Numbers of Industry Personnel Clearance
Investigations Needed in the Future Is Evolving:
DOD is changing the methods it uses to estimate the numbers of security
clearance investigations it will need for industry personnel in the
future in an effort to improve the accuracy of those estimates. Since
2001, DOD has conducted an annual survey of contractors performing
classified work for the government in order to estimate future
clearance-investigation needs for industry personnel. In November 2005,
OMB reported a governmentwide goal whereby agencies have been asked to
work toward refining their projections to be within 5 percent of the
numbers of actual requests for investigation.[Footnote 19] However, DOD
has had difficulties in projecting its departmentwide clearance needs
accurately. For the first half of fiscal year 2006, OPM reported that
DOD had exceeded its departmentwide projection by 59 percent. The
negative effects of such inaccurate projections include impediments to
workload planning and funding.
We have addressed the impact that inaccurate projections have on
workload planning in our prior work. In 2004, we recommended that
OUSD(I) improve the projections of clearance requirements for industry
personnel--for both the numbers and types of clearances--by working
with DOD components, industry contractors, and the acquisition
community to identify obstacles and implement steps to overcome them.
At that time, DOD officials attributed inaccurate projections to (1)
the fact that the voluntary annual survey was answered by only a small
fraction of the more than 10,000 cleared contractor facilities, (2) the
use of some industry personnel on more than one contract and often for
different agencies, (3) the movement of employees from one company to
another, and (4) unanticipated world events such as the September 11,
2001, terrorist attacks.
In its efforts to improve its estimates of future clearance
investigation needs, DSS has made recent changes to the methods it uses
to develop these estimates; and it is conducting research that may
change these methods further.[Footnote 20] First, starting in 2006, DSS
made its annual survey accessible through the Internet. Second, DSS
field staff made a more concerted effort to actively encourage industry
representatives to complete the voluntary survey. According to a DSS
official, these two changes increased the response rate of the survey,
from historical lows of between 10 and 15 percent of surveyed
facilities in previous years, to 70 percent of facilities responding in
2007, representing 86 percent of industry personnel with a clearance in
fiscal year 2007. Third, during fiscal year 2007, DSS began performing
weekly updates to the analysis of future investigation needs, rather
than relying on the previous method of performing a onetime annual
analysis. Fourth, DSS has changed its analysis procedures by including
variables (e.g., company size) not previously accounted for and is
using a statistical method that substitutes values for missing survey
data. In addition, DOD's Personnel Security Research Center is
assessing a statistical model for estimating future investigation needs
in order to determine if a model can supplement or replace the current
survey method.
DOD Currently Has No Plan of Its Own to Improve the Clearance Process
but Is Participating in Related Governmentwide Efforts:
Modifications to DOD's personnel security clearance program are
changing from a DOD-specific emphasis to one that focuses on
governmentwide efforts. Consequently, DOD does not have a comprehensive
plan to address department-specific clearance backlogs, delays, and
program funding. The principles of the Government Performance and
Results Act of 1993 provide federal agencies with a basis for a results-
oriented framework that they can use to construct comprehensive plans
that include setting goals, measuring performance, and reporting on the
degree to which goals are met. In addition, the Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 provides DOD with timeliness
requirements that would need to be met in any such comprehensive plan
addressing clearance backlogs and delays.
In our 2004 report[Footnote 21] on personnel security clearances for
industry personnel, we recommended that DOD develop and implement an
integrated, comprehensive management plan to eliminate the backlog,
reduce the delays in conducting investigations and determining
eligibility for security clearances, and overcome the impediments that
could allow such problems to recur. At that time, DOD had been reacting
to the impediments in a piecemeal fashion, rather than establishing an
integrated approach that incorporated objectives and outcome-related
goals, set priorities, identified resources, established performance
measures, and provided milestones for permanently eliminating the
backlog and reducing the delays.
The DSS Director told us that DSS had been drafting a comprehensive
plan to improve the security clearance process for industry personnel,
but new governmentwide efforts have supplanted the larger-scale
initiatives that DSS was planning. However, according to OUSD(I)
officials, DOD continues to pursue a limited number of smaller-scale
initiatives to address backlogs and delays and to ensure that funding
is available for its security clearance processes. For example, to
address delays in the processes, DOD is working with OPM to introduce
methods of obtaining applicants' fingerprints electronically and to
implement a method that would enable OPM to transfer investigative
records to DOD adjudicators electronically. To help ensure that funding
is available for its security clearance program, DOD is examining the
number of clearances it funds and undertakes for industry personnel who
work with 23 other federal agencies and departments. The DSS Director
indicated that DOD is considering the cost it incurs for providing
clearance-related services and the feasibility of shifting the funding
responsibility back to the federal agencies and departments that
request the clearances through DOD.
High-level attention has been focused on improving personnel security
clearance processes governmentwide. Since June 2005, OMB's Deputy
Director of Management has been responsible for a leadership role in
improving the governmentwide processes. During that time, OMB has
overseen, among other things, the issuance of reciprocity standards,
the growth of OPM's investigative workforce, and greater use of OPM's
automated clearance-application system. An August 9, 2007, memorandum
from the Deputy Secretary of Defense indicates that DOD's clearance
program is drawing attention at the highest levels of the department.
Streamlining security clearance processes is one of the 25 DOD
transformation priorities identified in the memorandum.
Another indication of high-level governmentwide involvement in
addressing problems in clearance processes is the formation of an
interagency security clearance process reform team in June 2007. The
team's memorandum of agreement indicates that it seeks to develop, in
phases, a reformed DOD and intelligence community security clearance
process that allows the granting of high-assurance security clearances
in the least time possible and at the lowest reasonable cost. The
team's July 25, 2007, terms of reference indicate that the team plans
to deliver "a transformed, modernized, fair, and reciprocal security
clearance process that is universally applicable" to DOD, the
intelligence community, and other U.S. government agencies, no later
than December 31, 2008. In our November 2007 discussions with DOD
officials, the OUSD(I) Director of Security clarified that the
government expects to have demonstrated the feasibility of components
of the new system by December 2008, but the actual system would not be
operational for some additional unspecified period.
Conclusions:
While DOD's initial report on security clearances addressed all of the
issues specified in the mandate, the omission of certain important
information on the same issues currently limits Congress's ability to
carry out its oversight and appropriations functions pertaining to
industry personnel security clearances. For example, inclusion of only
one future year of budgeting information limits the report's usefulness
for strategic appropriations and oversight purposes. Without more
information on DOD's longer-term funding needs for industry personnel
security clearances, Congress lacks the visibility it needs to fully
assess appropriations requirements. Elsewhere, DOD provides such longer-
term funding projections as a tool for looking beyond immediate budget
priorities. Specifically, DOD annually submits to Congress the FYDP,
which contains budget projections for the current budget year and at
least the 4 succeeding years. Similarly, congressional oversight is
hampered by the absence of information specific to industry personnel
on timeliness measures for the average number of days it takes to
perform portions of the clearance process--such as the adjudication
phase--for pending and completed cases. Without these additional
statistics, there is limited transparency for monitoring the progress
that DOD and OPM are making annually in streamlining investigative and
adjudicative tasks. Finally, DOD's report did not include any metrics
on quality, even though we have previously recommended--in multiple
reports and testimonies--that DOD and other parts of the government
develop and report such measures for their clearance processes.
Problems with the quality of investigations and adjudications can lead
to negative consequences--such as the reluctance of agencies to accept
clearances issued by other agencies--and can thereby increase waste in
the form of unnecessary additional workload for the entire clearance
community. Inclusion of these three types of data in the future annual
reports appears feasible, based on statements in DOD's initial report
that acknowledged the availability or ongoing development of each type
of data.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
To improve the quality of the information that DOD provides in future
reports to Congress for monitoring the security clearance process for
industry personnel, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct
the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence to augment the
information contained in the department's initial mandated report. We
therefore recommend the following three actions:
* Add 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.
* In addition to the mandated information on average delays for pending
cases; provide 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.
* Develop 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.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
In written comments on a draft of this report, OUSD(I) concurred with
all three of our recommendations. OUSD(I) noted that DOD agrees the
recommended additional information will aid Congress in its oversight
role and its future annual reports--starting in 2009--will include the
suggested information. Regarding our funding recommendation, OUSD(I)
noted its plans for addressing out year funding in the future and
discussed the difficulty in capturing infrastructure costs such as
those needed to sustain the current adjudication system and build a new
information technology system. With regard to our recommendation on
quality, DOD noted that the Personnel Security Research Center is
leading the effort to further define measures, develop collection
methodology, and suggest collection methods. DOD's comments are
included in their entirety in appendix II of this report.
We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional
committees; the Secretary of Defense; the Director of the Office of
Management and Budget; and the Director of the Office of Personnel
Management. We will also make copies available to others on request. In
addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site
at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].
If you or your staff has any questions about this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov. Contact points for
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found
on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions
to this report are listed in appendix III.
Signed by:
Brenda S. Farrell:
Director Defense Capabilities and Management:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
Scope:
The scope and methodology of this report follow from the questions it
answers. This report answers the following questions: (1) To what
extent does the Department of Defense's (DOD) August 2007 report to
Congress address the five issues specified in the mandate? (2) What
were the number and cost of each type of clearance investigation and
adjudication for industry personnel performed in fiscal years 2000
through 2006? (3) To what extent has DOD developed procedures to
estimate the number of investigations to be conducted; plans to reduce
delays and backlogs in the clearance program, if any; and provide
funding?
In 2006, the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal
Year 2007 mandated that (1) DOD report annually on the future
requirements of its industry personnel security investigations program
and (2) we evaluate DOD's first report in response to this mandate and
provide additional information on eight issues. For our review of the
DOD report, our scope was largely limited to information in the DOD
report. The report included information on initial and renewal top
secret, secret, and confidential clearances for industry personnel and
information about program funding, the size of the backlog, the average
time to complete investigations, and changes to the process. For the
additional information on the number and cost--including information on
surcharges that DOD paid to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)--
of each type of industry clearance work performed in DOD's personnel
security clearance program, we limited our scope to DSS-and OPM-
conducted investigations and DOD adjudications of initial and renewal
top secret, secret, and confidential clearances for industry personnel
completed in fiscal years 2000 through 2006. For the additional
information on planning and investigation requirements-estimation
procedures, our scope included DOD and governmentwide plans and on-
going efforts as well as DOD-specific procedures for estimating the
numbers of future initial and renewal top secret, secret, and
confidential clearances which will be needed for industry personnel.
Methodology:
To determine the extent to which DOD's report addressed each of the
five issues specified in the mandate, we reviewed various documents,
including laws and executive orders, DOD security clearances policies,
OPM security clearances policies, and DOD and governmentwide data
quality policies and regulations. These sources provided the criteria
used for assessing the DOD report on personnel security clearances for
industry. The sources also provided insights into possible causes and
effects related to our findings about whether the DOD report addressed
each of the issues specified in the mandate. We also reviewed clearance-
related reports issued by organizations such as GAO, DOD's Office of
Inspector General (DODIG), and DOD's Personnel Security Research
Center. We interviewed and obtained and evaluated documentary evidence
from headquarters policy and program officials from various offices
(see the column for question 1 in table 5) in DOD, OPM, and the
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). We compared the
findings in the DOD report to the mandated requirements and
governmentwide and DOD-wide data quality standards. We also interviewed
and discussed our observations of the DOD report with officials from
various DOD offices.
Table 5: Sources Providing Documentary and/or Testimonial Evidence as a
Result of Personal or Telephonic Interviews:
Office: DOD;
Office: OUSD(I), The Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia;
Office provided information to answer: Question 1: X;
Office provided information to answer: Question 2: X;
Office provided information to answer: Question 3: X.
Office: DOD;
Office: OUSD(C), The Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia;
Office provided information to answer: Question 1: X;
Office provided information to answer: Question 2: X;
Office provided information to answer: Question 3: X.
Office: DOD;
Office: DODIG, The Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia;
Office provided information to answer: Question 1: X;
Office provided information to answer: Question 2: [Empty];
Office provided information to answer: Question 3: X.
Office: DOD;
Office: DSS, Alexandria, Virginia;
Office provided information to answer: Question 1: X;
Office provided information to answer: Question 2: X;
Office provided information to answer: Question 3: X.
Office: DOD;
Office: DISCO, Columbus, Ohio;
Office provided information to answer: Question 1: [Empty];
Office provided information to answer: Question 2: X;
Office provided information to answer: Question 3: [Empty].
Office: DOD;
Office: DOHA, Columbus, Ohio;
Office provided information to answer: Question 1: [Empty];
Office provided information to answer: Question 2: X;
Office provided information to answer: Question 3: [Empty].
Office: DOD;
Office: Personnel Security Research Center, Monterey, California;
Office provided information to answer: Question 1: [Empty];
Office provided information to answer: Question 2: X;
Office provided information to answer: Question 3: X.
Office: NARA, Information Security Oversight Office, Washington, DC;
Office provided information to answer: Question 1: X;
Office provided information to answer: Question 2: [Empty];
Office provided information to answer: Question 3: X.
Office: OPM, Washington, DC;
Office provided information to answer: Question 1: [Empty];
Office provided information to answer: Question 2: X;
Office provided information to answer: Question 3: [Empty].
Source: GAO.
[End of table]
To determine the number and cost of each type of clearance
investigation and adjudication for industry personnel performed in
fiscal years 2000 through 2006, we obtained and analyzed data from the
Defense Security Service (DSS), the Office of the Under Secretary of
Defense for the Comptroller [OUSD(C)], the Defense Industrial Security
Clearance Office (DISCO), and the Defense Office of Hearings and
Appeals (DOHA). Before determining the numbers and types of
investigations and clearances, we assessed the reliability of the data
by (1) interviewing knowledgeable officials about the data and the
systems that produced them; (2) reviewing relevant documentation; and
(3) comparing multiple sources (e.g., DSS vs. OUSD(C) records) for
consistency of information and examining patterns in the data (e.g.,
the percentage of all adjudications in a given fiscal year that were
for top secret clearances). Our analyses showed the numbers and costs
of investigations and adjudications completed in fiscal years 2000
through 2004 were not sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this
report as we have previously discussed. In contrast we found the data
for fiscal years 2005 and 2006 to be sufficiently reliable for our
purposes but explicitly noted limitations with those data. The data for
these 2 more recent years used different databases than those used to
capture the earlier 5 years. Our methodology to determine the numbers
and costs of investigations and adjudications for fiscal years 2005 and
2006 included the following:
* Numbers of investigations: We obtained and analyzed data from OPM's
Personnel Investigations Processing System that DSS provided to us.
* Numbers of adjudications: We obtained and analyzed data from the
Joint Personnel Adjudications System.
* Costs of investigations: We obtained and analyzed investigation rate
data in Financial Investigative Notices published by OPM. While we
found limitations associated with these types of data for fiscal years
2005 and 2006, we found that the information was sufficiently reliable
for the purposes of this report.
* Surcharge for investigations: We obtained and analyzed documentary
and testimonial evidence from DSS and OUSD(C) officials.
* Costs of adjudications: We obtained and analyzed unit cost
information that DSS officials produced for this report to show the
cost of DISCO-provided adjudications and discussed the limitations of
these data in the report. Although DOHA reported a unit cost for
adjudications for fiscal year 2006, we did not report that statistic
because our assessment revealed that it was not sufficiently reliable
for the purposes of this report.
Finally, we interviewed headquarters policy and program officials from
various offices (see question 2 in table 5) in DOD, OPM, and NARA to
obtain their perspectives on our observations of these data.
To determine the extent to which DOD has developed procedures to
estimate the number of future investigations needed for industry
personnel and the extent to which DOD has plans to reduce delays and
backlogs and provide funding, we took the following actions. We
reviewed relevant laws, regulations, and DOD security clearances
policies. These sources provided the criteria that we used in our
evaluations. We also reviewed relevant clearance-related reports issued
by organizations such as GAO, DODIG, and DOD's Personnel Security
Research Center. We interviewed headquarters policy and program
officials from the organizations shown in table 5 (see the column for
question 3). Our methodology to determine the extent to which DOD has
developed procedures to estimate the number of future investigations
needed for industry personnel included three steps: (1) we obtained and
analyzed documents describing DOD's procedures for estimating the
number of industry investigations, (2) we reviewed DSS's Internet-based
survey of contractors who perform classified work for the government
and discussed our observations of this survey with the DSS Director and
DSS officials responsible for this survey, and (3) we reviewed
documents obtained from DOD officials describing ongoing research on
potential changes to the methods DOD uses to make these estimates.
Finally, our methodology to determine the extent to which DOD has plans
to reduce delays and backlogs and provide funding included reviewing
documents obtained in interviews with officials at the Office of the
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence [OUSD(I)] and DSS. In
particular, we reviewed and analyzed the Memorandum of Agreement
between the Director of National Intelligence and the Under Secretary
Of Defense (Intelligence) concerning the clearance process
reengineering team. We also reviewed an August 2007 memorandum from the
Deputy Secretary of Defense listing the top 25 transformation
priorities for DOD, one of which is streamlining the security clearance
process.
We conducted this performance audit from May 2007 through February 2008
in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense:
Office Of The Under Secretary Of Defense:
5000 Defense Pentagon:
Washington, Dc 20301-5000:
Intelligence:
February 5 2008:
Ms. Brenda S. Farrell:
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management:
U.S. Government Accountability Office:
441 G Street, N.W.:
Washington, D.C. 20548:
Dear Ms. Farrell:
This is the Department of Defense (DoD) response to the GAO draft
report, GAO-08-350, `DoD Personnel Clearances: Improved Annual
Reporting Would Enable More Informed Congressional Oversight,' dated
January 17, 2008 (GAO Code 350986)."
The recommendations ask the Department to provide information outside
of the 2006 Congressional mandate to report annually on the future
requirements of the industry personnel security program. The Department
agrees the additional information will aid Congress in its oversight
role and our future annual reports will include this information as
suggested. The recommendations will be implemented in the Department's
2009 report as they were received after submission of this year's
report.
I appreciate the opportunity to comment on the report and the
professionalism and courtesy of your personnel. My point of contact is
Rosalind Baybutt at (703) 604-1138 or rosalind.baybutt@osd.mil.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
Troy L. Sullivan
Acting Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Counterintelligence and
Security)
Enclosure:
As stated:
GAO Draft Report - Dated January 17, 2008 GAO Code 350986/GAO-08-350:
"DoD Personnel Clearances: Improved Annual Reporting Would Enable More
Informed Congressional Oversight"
Department Of Defense Comments To The Recommendations:
Recommendation 1: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense
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.
DOD Response: Concur. After an extensive review within DoD by the
Comptroller and Program Advisory and Execution (PA&E) process, it was
determined that the DSS funding was not sufficient. A fix was
implemented for the FY08 and FY09 funding lines and the entire DSS
program will be reevaluated for the FY10 Program Objective Memorandum
(POM). Therefore, showing any numbers beyond FY09 would not have
reflected accurate information. Once the POM process has been completed
and the DSS funding stabilized, the Department will include projected
funding for the out years.
Second, the report cites Congressional testimony by the Director of DSS
that "it would need tens of millions of dollars in the future to
maintain the infrastructure supporting the program and to cover
operating costs." The testimony cited referred to the cost to sustain
the Joint Personnel Adjudication System (WAS) and to build a successor
IT system. The budget numbers reflected in the Department's Report to
Congress (CDA) refer to the amount budgeted by DoD for direct
reimbursement costs to the Office of Personnel Management for Personnel
Security Investigations for Industry. There is no accounting mechanism
within the Department to capture infrastructure costs, such as those
for JPAS, and apply them to this direct cost.
Recommendation 2: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence to augment the
information contained in the Department's initial mandated report by
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.
DOD Response: Concur.
Recommendation 3: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense
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 including
them in future reports to explicitly show how DoD is balancing quality
and timeliness requirements in its personnel security clearance
program.
Dod Response: Concur. Using the Office of Management and Budget Program
Assessment Rating Tool, the Department has developed three key baseline
performance measures, cost of investigations and adjudications,
timeliness of the clearance process and quality of investigations and
adjudications. The Personnel Security Research Center (PERSEREC) has
the lead to further define the measures, develop collection methodology
and recommend collection tools.
[End of section]
Appendix III: Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
Brenda S. Farrell, (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov.
Acknowledgments:
In addition to the contact named above, Jack E. Edwards, Assistant
Director; Joanne Landesman; James P. Klein; Ron La Due Lake; Thomas C.
Murphy; Beverly C. Schladt; and Karen Thornton made key contributions
to this report.
[End of section]
Related GAO Products:
Defense Business Transformation: A Full-time Chief Management Officer
with a Term Appointment Is Needed at DOD to Maintain Continuity of
Effort and Achieve Sustainable Success. GAO-08-132T. Washington, D.C.:
October 16, 2007.
DOD Personnel Clearances: Delays and Inadequate Documentation Found For
Industry Personnel. GAO-07-842T. Washington, D.C.: May 17, 2007.
High-Risk Series: An Update. GAO-07-310. Washington, D.C.: January
2007.
DOD Personnel Clearances: Additional OMB Actions Are Needed To Improve
the Security Clearance Process. GAO-06-1070. Washington, D.C.:
September 28, 2006.
DOD Personnel Clearances: Questions and Answers for the Record
Following the Second in a Series of Hearings on Fixing the Security
Clearance Process. GAO-06-693R. Washington, D.C.: June 14, 2006.
DOD Personnel Clearances: New Concerns Slow Processing of Clearances
for Industry Personnel. GAO-06-748T. Washington, D.C.: May 17, 2006.
DOD Personnel Clearances: Funding Challenges and Other Impediments Slow
Clearances for Industry Personnel. GAO-06-747T. Washington, D.C.: May
17, 2006.
Questions for the Record Related to DOD's Personnel Security Clearance
Program and the Government Plan for Improving the Clearance Process.
GAO-06-323R. Washington, D.C.: January 17, 2006.
DOD Personnel Clearances: Government Plan Addresses Some Long-standing
Problems with DOD's Program, But Concerns Remain. GAO-06-233T.
Washington, D.C.: November 9, 2005.
Defense Management: Better Review Needed of Program Protection Issues
Associated with Manufacturing Presidential Helicopters. GAO-06-71SU.
Washington, D.C.: November 4, 2005.
Questions for the Record Related to DOD's Personnel Security Clearance
Program. GAO-05-988R. Washington, D.C.: August 19, 2005.
Industrial Security: DOD Cannot Ensure Its Oversight of Contractors
under Foreign Influence Is Sufficient. GAO-05-681. Washington, D.C.:
July 15, 2005.
DOD Personnel Clearances: Some Progress Has Been Made but Hurdles
Remain to Overcome the Challenges That Led to GAO's High-Risk
Designation. GAO-05-842T. Washington, D.C.: June 28, 2005.
DOD's High-Risk Areas: Successful Business Transformation Requires
Sound Strategic Planning and Sustained Leadership. GAO-05-520T.
Washington, D.C.: April 13, 2005.
High-Risk Series: An Update. GAO-05-207. Washington, D.C.: January
2005.
Intelligence Reform: Human Capital Considerations Critical to 9/11
Commission's Proposed Reforms. GAO-04-1084T. Washington, D.C.:
September 14, 2004.
DOD Personnel Clearances: Additional Steps Can Be Taken to Reduce
Backlogs and Delays in Determining Security Clearance Eligibility for
Industry Personnel. GAO-04-632. Washington, D.C.: May 26, 2004.
DOD Personnel Clearances: Preliminary Observations Related to Backlogs
and Delays in Determining Security Clearance Eligibility for Industry
Personnel. GAO-04-202T. Washington, D.C.: May 6, 2004.
Industrial Security: DOD Cannot Provide Adequate Assurances That Its
Oversight Ensures the Protection of Classified Information. GAO-04-332.
Washington, D.C.: March 3, 2004.
DOD Personnel Clearances: DOD Needs to Overcome Impediments to
Eliminating Backlog and Determining Its Size. GAO-04-344. Washington,
D.C.: February 9, 2004.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-07-310 (Washington, D.C.:
January 2007); and High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-05-207 (Washington,
D.C.: January 2005). The areas on our high-risk list receive their
designation because they are major programs and operations that need
urgent attention and transformation in order to ensure that our
national government functions in the most economical, efficient, and
effective manner possible.
[2] DOD, National Industrial Security Program: Operating Manual, DOD
5220.22-M (Feb. 28, 2006) notes that heads of agencies are required to
enter into agreement with the Secretary of Defense for the purpose of
rendering industrial security services. The following 23 departments
and agencies have entered into such agreements: (1) National
Aeronautics and Space Administration, (2) Department of Commerce, (3)
General Services Administration, (4) Department of State, (5) Small
Business Administration, (6) National Science Foundation, (7)
Department of the Treasury, (8) Department of Transportation, (9)
Department of the Interior, (10) Department of Agriculture, (11)
Department of Labor, (12) Environmental Protection Agency, (13)
Department of Justice, (14) Federal Reserve System, (15) Government
Accountability Office, (16) U.S. Trade Representative, (17) U.S.
International Trade Commission, (18) U.S. Agency for International
Development, (19) Nuclear Regulatory Commission, (20) Department of
Education, (21) Department of Health and Human Services, (22)
Department of Homeland Security, and (23) Federal Communications
Commission.
[3] Pub. L. No. 108-458.
[4] GAO, DOD Personnel Clearances: Additional OMB Actions Are Needed to
Improve the Security Clearance Process, GAO-06-1070 (Washington, D.C.:
Sept. 28, 2006); DOD Personnel: More Consistency Needed in Determining
Eligibility for Top Secret Security Clearances, GAO-01-465 (Washington,
D.C.: Apr. 18, 2001); and DOD Personnel: Inadequate Personnel Security
Investigations Pose National Security Risks, GAO/NSIAD-00-12
(Washington, D.C.: Oct. 27, 1999).
[5] Pub. L. No. 109-364, §347 (2006).
[6] GAO-06-1070.
[7] The number of clearances granted in a year may not match the number
of investigations conducted in that year because of the time that
elapses between completion of the investigation and completion of the
adjudication.
[8] GAO-04-632.
[9] Currently, three DOD agencies (National Security Agency, Defense
Intelligence Agency, and the National Reconnaissance Office) have
waivers from DOD that allow them to contract for their own personnel
security clearance investigations.
[10] 5 C.F.R. § 1312.4, (2007).
[11] DOD reported the annualized projected funding requirement for
fiscal year 2007 of $178 million for this program based on the 41-week
period from October 1, 2006, through July 14, 2007. In addition, the
DOD report indicated that the department's 2006 survey, which provided
data for fiscal years 2007 through 2010, indicated an industry
personnel security investigations funding requirement that may exceed
$300 million for fiscal year 2008.
[12] The report showed average delay-related information for completed
cases but not average delays for pending cases. The report did,
however, provide a frequency distribution of times for pending cases.
The mandate required that DOD report the length of the average delay
for an individual case pending in the investigation process.
[13] OPM performs one investigation--known as the national agency check
with local agency check and credit check (NACLC)--for the initial and
renewal of both the secret and confidential clearances.
[14] The DSS Director told us that the information in Section V of the
DOD report constituted the Secretary of Defense's certification that
DOD had taken actions to improve its industry clearance program during
the 12 months preceding the report date and that the Under Secretary of
Defense for Intelligence was authorized to certify for the Secretary of
Defense in this instance.
[15] This annualized projection was based on the 41 weeks from October
1, 2006, to July 14, 2007.
[16] GAO-06-1070.
[17] GAO-06-1070. Table 1 in our September 2006 report shows the types
of information gathered for each type of clearance-eligibility
determination.
[18] DOD Office of the Inspector General, Transition Expenditures for
DOD Personnel Security Investigations for FY 2005, D-2007-083
(Arlington, Va.: Apr. 10, 2007).
[19] OMB, Plan for Improving the Personnel Security Clearance Process
(November 2005).
[20] Although OUSD(I) officials provided us with information which may
indicate that DOD improved the accuracy of its estimates of future
clearance investigation needs for industry in fiscal year 2007, we were
not able to analyze and corroborate this evidence because it was
provided after we had concluded the analysis phase of our audit.
[21] GAO-04-632.
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