The Department of Defense could go further to reduce security
clearance backlogs and delays for industry personnel, the
General Accounting Office has said, in recommending a more
proactive management plan to address the problem.
It said of September 30, 2003, industry workers held more
than one-third of all clearances issued by DoD. The backlog
has grown to about 188,000 cases and the average time to
conduct the process and issue clearance has grown over the
past three years by 56 days to 375.
After reviewing the clearance eligibility process for
industry personnel GAO said the under secretary of defense
for intelligence should improve projections of industry
clearances required, eliminate reciprocity limitations,
develop an integrated plan to eliminate the backlog and
reduce delays, and analyze the feasibility of initiatives
to reduce the backlog and delays.
A large number of new clearance requests is contributing to
the backlog along with an increase in labor-intensive
top-secret requests, inaccurate workload projections and an
imbalance between workforces and workloads, said GAO,
reiterating an earlier report.
It said DoD still lacks an integrated, comprehensive,
management plan for addressing the backlog and delays, but
it is considering a phased, periodic reinvestigation,
establishing a single adjudicative facility for industry,
and reevaluating investigative standards and adjudicative
guidelines, and implementing an automated verification
process for identifying and validating industrial security
clearance requirements.
However, the initiatives could be held back by the need to
change government wide regulations, noted GAO.