Office of Personnel Management is moving forward with an
expansion of its national investigative capacity to
8,000 “fully productive investigators and support
staff,” to help clear a backlog of security clearances
– and expects to have 6,500 full-time equivalent federal
and contract investigators by the end of fiscal 2005.
The Department of Defense’s Defense Security Service
completed its transfer of about 1,800 employees to OPM
In February, and acting OPM director Dan G. Blair,
speaking at an orientation session in Atlanta said the
agency expects to manage 90 percent of all background
investigations conducted for federal agencies.
That’s a tall order considering the sizable backlog of
cases transferred to OPM. A GAO report from last year
put the backlog at over 180,000.
OPM said it is looking into ways to use IT to collect
personnel forms more quickly and to carry out overseas
fieldwork. It said it is also developing common
investigative standards to encourage agencies to accept
each other’s background clearances.
