While the government’s security clearance and other personnel vetting processes help to ensure Federal employees are trustworthy, a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds that the Federal government lacks consistent and complete data on how these processes work.
GAO explains that personnel vetting decisions are supposed to be reciprocal. For instance, if one agency clears an employee, that employee should then be able to transfer to another agency without a new background check.
Yet, GAO found that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) – two agencies with key personnel vetting oversight responsibilities – lack reciprocity data on employees due to gaps in IT systems.
“ODNI and OPM have not fully addressed all reciprocity-related challenges that agencies and contractors face,” the report says. “For example, 28 of the 31 agencies GAO surveyed stated that information technology (IT) systems at times did not have complete information needed to make reciprocity determinations.”
“If ODNI and OPM took actions to mitigate this and other challenges, agencies may be able to grant reciprocity more often and more quickly,” it adds.
The report notes that agencies are inconsistent when they report reciprocity data to ODNI – sometimes they report it by component and other times at the agency level.
Data is also incomplete – two of the five agencies GAO analyzed did not report the required data to ODNI on the frequency with which they decided individuals were ineligible for reciprocity.
According to GAO, agencies and contractors face several reciprocity challenges, such as capability gaps in IT systems, lack of trust between agencies, lack of access to key IT systems, missing information in IT systems, and ineffective communication between agencies.
Additionally, GAO said that agencies often don’t provide updates to contractors when the security clearance reciprocity process is delayed.
“If ODNI develops and implements a plan to ensure that contractors are informed about the status of reciprocity determinations, contractors may be able to plan projects and hire personnel better, which could have positive effects on government contracts,” the report says.
GAO made eight recommendations to ODNI and OPM, including that ODNI follow best practices to evaluate the reliability of data, ODNI and OPM develop and implement a plan to ensure that IT systems contain complete and accurate information, and ODNI develop and implement a plan to inform contractors about the status of reciprocity determinations.
OPM concurred with the recommendations directed to it, and ODNI did not provide formal comments on the recommendations.
“OPM is developing jointly with ODNI additional policy guidance for personnel vetting management that will be addressed to personnel vetting practitioners at Federal agencies,” Lisa Loss, the director of Suitability Executive Agent Programs at OPM, wrote in response to the report.
“This policy will establish requirements for executive branch personnel vetting programs to apply sound risk management practices to assess the trustworthiness of individuals who work for or on behalf of the Federal government,” Loss concluded.
