Hiring and keeping senior executives at the Homeland Security Department has been on Congress’s watch list since the agency was born.

In a comprehensive review at the behest of Congress, the Government Accountability Office found that, while senior-leadership vacancy rates peaked at 25 percent in 2006, they have declined since then. At the end of fiscal-year 2011, the vacancy rate was about 10 percent.

David Maurer, the director of Homeland Security and Justice issues at the Government Accountability Office, joined In Depth with Francis Rose to discuss the results of the review.

At the end of fiscal-year 2010, attrition rate for senior DHS leaders stood at 11.4 percent and for three of the years surveyed the rate was statistically higher than other comparable federal agencies.

However, the overall trendline points toward progress by the agency, GAO said.

“The bottom line here is that DHS used to have a pretty significant problem but it no longer appears to have that problem,” Maurer said.

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