The National Background Investigation Bureau (NBIB) is in the last month of its first quarter of business (recall, NBIB opened its doors officially on October 1, 2016), and all are waiting to see how NBIB might begin accelerating the really disappointing End-to-End Process Timeliness for Government-Wide Security Clearance processing. According to the Cross Agency Priority Goal Quarterly Progress Update for Q4 FY16, for all three categories that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is tracking—Initial Secret Cases, Initial Top Secret Cases, and Periodic Reinvestigations—the numbers at the end of FY16 were significantly worse than a year ago.
THE GLASS IS HALF FULL
Even as Federal News Radio’s Nicole Ogrysko reports that “end-to-end process to finish a security clearance investigation during the last quarter of the 2016 ran longer than any other time during the year and fell well short of the administration’s target goals,” Ogrysko fairly notes that “the latest report on Performance.gov shows the administration spent the year putting several key building blocks in place to implement future security clearance reforms and insider threat programs.”
Nicole’s right. Over 93 percent are on track or complete. That’s pretty good. Of the 19 Key Milestones related to modernizing the vetting program, six are complete, and nine are on track. Three of the 19 are assessed as “Not Started.” But don’t be alarmed—those three are not due complete until October 2018, 2020, and 2021, respectively, and one of two October 2018 milestones is already reported “On Track.” That milestone is key—to “Develop mechanisms to improve the quality and efficiency of the end-to-end SSC vetting process.” Sounds like we can expect a new vetting system in place a little less than two years from now. Given that NBIB was established only a few months ago, and their work is about reforming systems across government and down to state and local levels, it’s an ambitious goal.
Only one milestone is judged “At Risk.” That’s the process of setting “standards for granting and suspending access to [Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12] compliant cards/badges.” Even this early in 2017, calling this one “At Risk” is in the running for understatement of the year. Homeland Security and every federal agency has been pecking away at this one since August 2004. But that’s another story.
NBIB’S ROLE
In September 2016, Executive Order 13467 established NBIB as the government’s one-stop shop for background investigations. That same month, CIA-man Charles S. Phalen Jr. was appointed NBIB’s first director. And NBIB has completed hiring of 400 investigators, and awarded contracts for NBIB’s contracted field investigators.
So when we talk about milestones, NBIB is playing a big role. For instance, one of the completed milestones was simply the establishment of NBIB, which wasn’t a simple matter. Additionally, NBIB’s already established the office that will serve as a liaison between Director Phalen’s team and officials from the Federal to local level. This effort is about improving information sharing for the sake of background investigations, specifically information related to criminal histories. By June of this year, the NBIB Federal Background Investigations Liaison Office should have its training materials distributed to the local level, so everyone involved will understands processes, obligations, and options for federal funding of system improvements.
MAKING PROGRESS
So OMP and NBIB are making progress, and progress is being carefully tracked. Certainly, October 2018 is a long time to wait to see some vetting relief, but if Ogrysko’s right, perhaps we’ll see some quicker turns on clearances by the end of FY2017.
We’ll keep an eye on it.
