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GAO-08-580R 1 (2008-03-25)

handle is hein.gao/gaocrptawob0001 and id is 1 raw text is: SGAO Accountability * Integrity * Reliability United States Government Accountability Office Washington, DC 20548 March 25, 2008 The Honorable Solomon P. Ortiz Chairman The Honorable J. Randy Forbes Ranking Member Subcommittee on Readiness Committee on Armed Forces House of Representatives Subject: DOD Personnel Clearances: Questions for the Record Related to the Quality and Timeliness of Clearances On February 13, 2008, Mr. Jack Edwards-an Acting Director in our Defense Capabilities and Management team-testified before your subcommittee at a hearing on the Department of Defense (DOD) security clearance processes.' This report responds to your request for additional information on that subject. Your questions, and our responses, follow. 1. In the report that GAO issued today to this committee and your testimony statement, you discussed a need for more emphasis on quality in clearance products and processes. What have agencies been using as quality measures, and are they sufficient? Through our reports and testimonies, we have emphasized a need to build more quality and quality monitoring into the clearances process. As we have reported, since 1999 government agencies have relied on a measure of quality-the percentage of investigative reports returned by requesting agencies to the investigating agency because of incompleteness-and this measure is insufficient. We find this measure to be problematic because the number of investigations returned for rework is not by itself a valid indicator of the quality of investigative work. One reason for this is that according to adjudication officials, they were reluctant to return incomplete investigations in anticipation of further delays.2 Additionally, this metric pertains only 'GAO, DOD Personnel Clearances: DOD Faces Multiple Challenges in Its Efforts to Improve Clearance Processes for Industry Personnel, GAO-08-470T (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 13, 2008). 2For example, GAO, DOD Personnel Clearances: Additional OMB Actions Are Needed to Improve the Security Clearance Process, GAO-06-1070 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 28, 2006); DOD Personnel Clearances: Government Plan Addresses Some Long-standing Problems with DOD's Program, But Concerns Remain, GAO-06-233T (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 9, 2005); and DOD Personnel: Inadequate Personnel Security Investigations Pose National Security Risks, GAO/NSIAD-O0-12 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 27, 1999). DOD Personnel Clearances GAO-08-580R Page 1

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