Delays in major government technology programs are nothing new. It’s probably harder to find government programs that were actually delivered on time and schedule than finding those that weren’t. But the National Background Investigation Services (NBIS) is getting special scrutiny for its behind schedule roll-out, and as of this update, we’re still waiting on updated timelines and benchmarks.
Last week the Program Accountability Council Program Management Office (PAC PMO) released its quarterly update that provides key progress updates and oversight of Trusted Workforce topics. In the Fiscal Year Q2 2024 update a number of milestones were already noted they would be “updated as a part of the NBIS recovery planning effort.” In the Q3 update, many of those same milestones noted they were still awaiting timelines, but included a slightly more optimistic note that the timeline was expected to be updated in the next quarter’s report.
Two key movements in the Trusted Workforce 2.0 effort are currently delayed by NBIS – the enrollment of the full high risk public trust population into Continuous Vetting (CV), and the implementation of the Personnel Vetting Questionnaire (PVQ).
The very first high risk public trust individuals are being enrolled into CV right now – but the full population was already supposed to be there, not a limited population.
Over the past several months, just about everything has been on the table, including the Defense Innovation Board report that urged NBIS to get on track – or get scrapped.
Are new benchmarks delayed because NBIS is going back to the drawing board, or because of other internal debates with how to address the system of systems that is NBIS? Only time will tell.
