Congress authorized the National Security Personnel System (NSPS) in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 04. The law allowed the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish a new Human Resources (HR) management system designed to align with its critical mission requirements and protect the civil service rights of its employees. The NSPS governed compensation, staffing, classification, performance management, labor relations, adverse actions, and employee appeals while preserving merit principles, veterans' preference, due process, and employees' right to bargain.

The NDAA for FY 10 repealed the NSPS. The law required the DoD to take all actions necessary for the orderly termination of NSPS and the transition of all employees and positions from NSPS to legacy personnel systems or, if applicable, to the personnel systems that would have applied if NSPS had never been established. The law mandated that no employee would suffer loss in pay during the transition process, which must be completed no later than January 1, 2012. Finally, this law also required DoD to establish a new performance management system and consider development of additional staffing flexibilities and a workforce incentive fund.

At the time of repeal Army had more than 86,000 employees in the NSPS. To comply with NDAA 2010, the Army developed a Transition Plan, establishing an Army-wide schedule, by command, to transition employees from NSPS to the General Schedule (GS) or other legacy personnel systems. Execution of this plan resulted in the successful transition of approximately 67,000 NSPS employees into the GS system in FY 10 and the remaining approximately 19,000 into GS and other personnel systems by December 2011.

Army information regarding NSPS has been archived.

References:

The National Defense Authorization Act for 2010