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The investigations process is to blame for higher security clearance processing times at the beginning of 2016 and end of 2015. Challenges with culture, resources and legal questions are also pushing agencies farther and farther off schedule in standing up their own insider threat programs.
A successful transition to the administration's new federal security clearance program will take the right technology, timing and leadership, former federal intelligence community experts said.
The National Background Investigations Bureau will have its own director, who will report to the Office of Personnel Management. The administration says it doesn't have a specific timeline for implementing the new security clearance program or standing up the new agency, but changes will come in incremental stages.
Beginning on Dec. 8, the Defense Security Service all but ceased its processing of personnel security investigation requests for government contractors, and by the time things were up and running again on Jan. 5, a new backlog of approximately 10,000 cases had built up.
Initial secret and top-secret cases took an average of 95 and 179 days to process, respectively, by the end of last fiscal year, according to a fourth quarter update on Performance.gov.