One-Year Wait For Top Secret Clearance: GAO Industry personnel waited more than a year, on average, for a top secret security clearance, the Government Accountability Office reported. The investigators said the average time to grant a new top secret clearance for a defense contractor was 446 days; updating an existing clearance took an average of 545 days. GAO examined 2,259 clearances that were granted in January and February 2006. The Office of Personnel Management, which handles background investigations, said more recent data show substantial improvement. By law, agencies are required to process 80% of clearance applications within an average of 120 days starting in December. Even the Defense Department’s point man, Robert Andrews, deputy undersecretary for counterintelligence and security, said, “Patchwork fixes will not solve the fundamental problem that our current process takes too long, costs too much and leaves us with a product of uncertain quality.” He said DOD is working on improvements. GAO recommended that the Office of Management and Budget, which oversees the clearance program, step up the use electronic technology to manage the processing of clearances. Many defense agencies do not use OPM’s electronic application system and OPM has to print and mail copies of many of its background investigations to DOD. The GAO investigators said using paper instead of electronic data-sharing adds four or five weeks to the processing time. In many cases the investigators found DOD granted clearances even though significant information was missing from the background investigations, creating the potential for damage to national security. “Under the strain of increased demand for clearances, the current system seems unable to maintain investigative standards consistently” House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) said in a statement. “Most of the background checks studies were incomplete, with gaps in potentially critical areas like foreign contacts and income sources.” Clay Johnson, deputy OMB director, said an interagency working group is looking at the quality of investigations, which is “of paramount importance.” OPM Director Linda Springer said the report was based on outdated information and the system continues to improve, but she acknowledged ongoing problems. She said “the single biggest cause of delays and backlogs” is agencies’ inability to forecast how many clearances they will need, so OPM can plan for the workload. GAO investigators have leveled the same criticism in a series of reports over the past several years. Federal contractors in the Washington-Baltimore region paid an average 14% premium to employees with top secret clearances, according to a survey by the Human Resources Association of the National Capital Area. Some companies have said they are paying as much as 25% extra. (SAA, 10/27) Seven contractor organizations have described the clearance process as “irrevocably broken” and called for “one application, one adjudication and one clearance” throughout the government. (SAA, 6/16) The report, DOD Security Clearances: Additional OMB Actions Are Needed to Improve the Security Clearance Process, is available at www.gao.gov.