State Nearly Halves Time To Complete Security ClearancesReprinted with permission from the Federal Times and FederalTimes.com January 24, 2005 Now, largely through the use of new computer systems and streamlined processes, clearances are done in under four months, and that time is expected to be reduced to less than three months by the end of the year. “We can now hire 160 more people a month than we could before because we are getting the clearances done so much faster,” said Donald Reid, director of security infrastructure. Slow background investigations are a governmentwide problem. The Office of Personnel Management, which does background investigations for most civilian agencies and will take over conducting investigations for the Defense Department in February, has been criticized by Congress for taking more than 10 months to conduct security clearance investigations. Reid said State, which is one of the agencies not served by OPM, was able to speed up its background investigations by building a new information system that automated many of the paper processes that added weeks and months to the investigative process. Instead of building a system from scratch, State heeded the administration’s call for agencies to share information systems — it built its system around the security clearance application form OPM automated almost two years ago. “We volunteered to be the first agency to use the electronic form, and we saw immediately that we could use it as a starting point to speed up our investigations,” Reid said. Before the new system automated the 13-page Questionnaire for National Security Positions, SF-86, used to apply for security clearances, State Department employees filled it out by hand. Each address and job the employee lists on the form has to be verified by a State Department investigator. But previously, with State’s outdated communication system, merely notifying State’s investigative staff about what needed to be verified often took months, Reid said. “A lot of employees have worked in more than a dozen countries, so we would have to notify investigators in each of those countries individually.’’ Keeping track of what investigators had verified and which investigators were behind was also a logistical nightmare. “No one ever knew exactly what was done on a particular investigation at any given time,” Reid said. The $1.5 million information system has changed all that. For instance, when an employee types into the electronic form that he went to school in England and worked in Russia, the system automatically notifies investigators in those countries that those facts must be verified. Reid’s office also no longer has to guess how much progress is being made in a particular investigation. The system tracks electronically which parts of the investigation have been completed, and, with the click of a mouse, Reid’s office can check the progress of any clearance investigation. Another reason investigation time is shorter is investigators spend less time answering phone calls. “Before the new system, their phones would ring all day long with people wanting to know where their clearances were,” Reid said. He solved that problem by setting up a customer service office that gives clearance applicants updates on where their investigations stand. There is also a Web site for employees that answers the most common questions about security clearances. Reid said investigators initially resisted the idea of an automated system. “There was the natural bureaucratic resistance to change, but once they saw their phones had stopped ringing, everyone decided it was a good idea,” Reid said. The American Foreign Service Association said Foreign Service officers have noticed the improvement. “Our members all remember when the security clearance process took an interminable about of time,” said an association spokesman who asked not to be identified. “It is particularly important that they have sped up the process at this critical time when we need to hire qualified people as quickly as possible.” |
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