GAO has reported that despite several reforms in the security clearance process—including shifting responsibilities from DoD to OPM—the average time to issue or update clearances remains well above the government’s goals. The GAO report focused on clearances for contractor employees, but generally the same processes are used for federal employees, as well. For example, the process takes an average of 446 days for initial clearances and 545 days for clearance updates, and OPM uses an average of 286 days to complete initial investigations for top secret clearances where the goal is 180 days, the report said. Slowness in getting initial and updated clearances is an ongoing issue for many federal employees, many of whom need clearances in order to perform their jobs. OPM and some congressional officials have said that the data are out of date and that the performance has improved since GAO gathered it information.