Government background checks at risk: 700,000 waiting on clearance

Last week, the Government Accountability Office (GOA) took the unusual step of adding government background check efforts to its list of “high-risk” programs, due to the 700,000 people waiting to get clearance. This action by GOA is certifying that the process is in need of concerted action to prevent waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement.

“A high-quality and timely personnel security clearance process is essential to minimize the risks of unauthorized disclosures of classified information and to help ensure that information about individuals with criminal histories or other questionable behavior is identified and assessed,” U.S. Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro said in a release.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), an office within the General Services Administration that is charged with doing the background checks, is still without a permanent director more than a year into President Trump’s tenure. The GAO criticized OPM for failing to set long-term goals to address the backlog, saying “renewed and strong top leadership commitment” is needed to solve the problem.

GAO added the government-wide personnel security clearance process to the High Risk List due, in part, to challenges identified in two recent reports on the personnel security clearance process.

In these reports GAO identified:

1. A significant backlog of background investigations
2. A lack of long-term goals for increasing federal and contractor-provided investigator capacity to address the backlog
3. Delays in the timely processing of security clearances
4. The need to identify milestones for establishing government-wide performance measures for the quality of background investigations
5. Delays in completing key initiatives of the security clearance reform effort
6. Concerns by the Department of Defense (DOD) about the development of a new information technology system for the personnel security clearance process and its connections to Office of Personnel Management (OPM) legacy systems

Comptroller General Dodaro will be sending a letter to the Security, Suitability, and Credentialing Performance Accountability Council Principals—the Deputy Director for Management of the Office of Management and Budget, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of OPM, and the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence—alerting them to the concerns leading to GAO’s decision and identifying recommendations to address them.