Transportation Security: Action Needed to Strengthen TSA's Security Threat Assessment Process
Released: 2013-08-02T00:00:00

Letter

Background

TSA Security Threat Assessments and Responsible Offices

TSA is responsible for administering background checks—known as security threat assessments—for maritime, surface, and aviation transportation security programs that have vetted approximately 15 million applicants since 2003, according to TSA officials. Security threat assessments are designed to ensure that only eligible individuals are granted TSA-related credentials, such as a TWIC. Specifically, security threat assessments focus on identifying threats posed by individuals seeking to obtain an endorsement, credential, access, and/or privilege for, among other purposes, unescorted access to secure or restricted areas of transportation facilities at maritime ports and TSA-regulated airports, and for commercial drivers transporting hazardous materials. Implementing these programs is a shared responsibility among multiple TSA offices, including the OIA Program Management Division which manages the programs, and the Adjudication Center within OLE/FAMS, which serves as the primary operational component for conducting security threat assessments for 12 of TSA’s 17 aviation, maritime, and surface transportation credentialing programs—with the TWIC, HME and Aviation Worker programs accounting for a reported 95 percent of the Adjudication Center’s workload. (See appendix I for a TSA organization chart showing TSA offices responsible for implementing transportation security threat assessment programs.)

The security threat assessment process includes reviewing information to determine if applicants are disqualified to possess a credential based on criminal offenses, immigration status, or a link to terrorism. The security threat assessment involves two key components:

Automated watchlist and related vetting: The initial automated vetting process is conducted to determine whether any derogatory information is associated with the name and fingerprints submitted by an applicant during the enrollment process. Among the checks conducted by TSA, one is against criminal history records maintained by or available through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). These records contain information from federal, state and local sources in the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database and the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System/Interstate Identification Index, which maintain criminal records and related fingerprint submissions. A check is also conducted against the Terrorist Screening Database, which is the federal government’s consolidated terrorist watchlist and from which the Selectee and No-Fly lists, among others, are compiled. To determine an applicant’s immigration/citizenship status, applicant information is checked against the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system. If the applicant is a U.S.-born citizen with no related derogatory information, the system can approve the individual’s application for a credential with no further review of the applicant or human intervention.

Adjudication Center review: A manual, second level review is conducted as part of an individual’s security threat assessment if (1) the automated vetting uncovers any derogatory information, such as a criminal offense or (2) the applicant has identified himself or herself to be a non-U.S.-born citizen or national. As such, not all applicants will be subjected to a second-level review. The Adjudication Center plays an integral role in the security threat assessment process by adjudicating cases for which an initial automated check finds potential links to criminal history or immigration eligibility issues. Adjudication Center staff review the program applicant’s enrollment file to determine if derogatory or other information may be potentially disqualifying. The applicant’s files are processed from credentialing program enrollment centers through two-web enabled case management systems, called the Screening Gateway and Consolidated Screening Gateway. Adjudication Center staff use the Screening Gateways as their tool for gathering, viewing, and synthesizing the information needed to conduct security threat assessments.

Since its establishment in 2005, the Adjudication Center has relied primarily upon contractor staff to complete its security threat assessment workload, and a smaller number of federal government staff to conduct oversight and other functions. Contractor staff performs initial adjudication of cases, and may either approve applications if they determine an applicant is eligible to obtain a credential or refer the application to a federal (that is, TSA) adjudicator for further review if they determine the applicant to be ineligible. Federal staff review cases of potential ineligibility, issue Preliminary Determination of Ineligibility letters to applicants, and conduct redress actions, among other things. As of May 2013, TSA reported that about two-thirds (37 of 55) of Adjudication Center staff were contractors.

Figure 1 shows the TSA credentialing process for the TWIC, HME, and Aviation Worker programs from enrollment through credential issuance, and the functions of the Adjudication Center’s TSA and contract staff in the security threat assessment process.

Federal agencies face a complicated set of decisions in finding the right mix of government and contractor personnel to conduct their missions. While contractors, when properly used, can play an important role in helping agencies accomplish their missions, our prior work has shown that agencies face challenges with increased reliance on contractors to perform core agency missions. Consistent with Office of Management and Budget procurement policy, agencies should provide a greater degree of scrutiny when contracting for professional and management support, program evaluation, and other services that can affect the government’s decision-making authority—functions that may be considered as being closely associated with inherently governmental functions. Contractors can provide services that closely support inherently governmental functions, but agencies must provide greater scrutiny and enhanced management oversight to ensure that the contractors’ work does not limit the authority, accountability, and responsibilities of government employees.

The DHS BWS refers to the department’s effort to identify the appropriate balance of federal and contractor employees required to support critical agency functions. Consistent with our recommendations and in accordance with the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009 DHS adopted the BWS in August 2010 to undertake risk analyses that are to enable the department to achieve the appropriate mix of Federal employees and contractors to accomplish its mission while minimizing mission risk that may result from an over-reliance on contractors. DHS uses an automated tool to help components—such as TSA—perform the necessary analysis to categorize work as appropriate for use of a contractor, inherently governmental, or closely associated with an inherently governmental function. The assessment tool is intended to facilitate an assessment of mission risk, level of contractor oversight needed, risk mitigation strategies, and cost analysis. Based on component responses, the tool is to provide a recommended sourcing decision on whether the work is appropriate for federal or contractor performance, or both. For example, should the BWS assessment find that a function is inherently governmental, the component would recommend the function be insourced to government employees, whereas a determination that the function was closely associated with an inherently governmental function would require the agency to either insource the function (also known as federalizing), or strengthen oversight of the contractor workforce.

Adjudication Center Contractor Related Performance Challenges

In December 2011, we reported that the Adjudication Center had faced recurring challenges in meeting its security threat assessment workload requirements and largely attributed these challenges to its reliance on a contractor workforce. Specifically, the Adjudication Center had experienced recurring backlogs in completing its caseload, and Adjudication Center officials attributed these backlogs to staffing limitations caused by contractor turnover. Officials at the time reported that the challenge was that the Adjudication Center had used three different contractors since establishing the Adjudication Center in 2005, and on each occasion the contract adjudicator turnover had led to backlogs as adjudicators were hired and trained. TSA reported that it did not consider the risks of acquiring contractor support services to provide adjudication services before awarding its first contract in 2005. Rather, TSA reported that it chose to use contract adjudicators when the Adjudication Center was created because, at the time, it considered them to be the most readily available workforce and effective way to augment federal staff with skilled resources. TSA reported that the agency had initiated an assessment in March 2011 through the DHS BWS process to determine whether the adjudication functions were appropriate to be performed by a contractor workforce, whether the work was inherently governmental and whether there would be cost savings resulting from conversion of the contract positions to government positions. We recommended TSA develop a workforce staffing plan with timelines articulating how the Adjudication Center will effectively and efficiently meet its current and emerging workload requirements, and incorporate the results of TSA’s study examining the appropriateness and costs and benefits of using contractors. TSA concurred with our recommendation and reported that it had begun taking steps to implement it.

Adjudication Center Performance Data Show Mixed Results, Accuracy Measures Are Limited, and Performance Measurement Practices Are Not Fully Documented

TSA has evaluated the Adjudication Center largely based on contractor performance in meeting established metrics and data shows mixed performance since 2011; however the Adjudication Center’s performance measures and practices are limited. We found that the Adjudication Center contractor met two of its three performance measures—for timeliness and accuracy—but did not do so for its caseload size measure. Further, these measures and practices were limited. For example, the Adjudication center’s methodology for calculating contractor adjudicator accuracy was limited because it did not include key information. Moreover, the Adjudication Center has not documented key elements of its performance measurement practices.

Two Performance Measures Showed Mixed Results

TSA has used performance data for three primary metrics to measure the performance of the Adjudication Center in conducting security threat assessments for the TWIC, HME, and Aviation Worker programs. The three metrics are timeliness for completing initial adjudication, caseload size, and adjudication accuracy. According to TSA Adjudication Center officials, these performance measures were established to evaluate the performance-based contract for adjudication services at the Adjudication Center.

Timeliness. The Adjudication Center contractor met timeliness standards for completing initial adjudication of its TWIC, HME, and Aviation Worker caseloads (see figure 1 for a description of this process). TSA requires that its contract adjudicator workforce complete initial adjudication of 95 percent of cases within 7 calendar days of the case entering TSA’s Screening Gateway case management systems for TWIC, HME, and Aviation Worker cases. According to TSA data, from August 2011 to January 2013, the adjudicator workforce met this standard for TWIC, HME, and Aviation Worker cases.

While the Adjudication Center’s timeliness measure shows the Adjudication Center’s contractor met TSA’s standard for completing initial adjudication, the measure does not show the extent to which the agency has communicated its adjudication decision to the applicant in a timely manner—key statutory and TSA policy requirements for its credentialing programs—and TSA officials reported they did not maintain such documentation. For example, as specified in statute, TSA shall review an initial TWIC application and provide a response to the applicant, as appropriate, within 30 days of receiving the initial application. Moreover, officials with the OIA Program Management Division and Adjudication Center reported that TSA had established internal requirements for the agency to meet 30 day and 14 day applicant response times for HME and Aviation Worker applicants. Officials from the OIA Program Management Division reported tracking this measure through weekly Adjudication Center performance reports and identifying and addressing those cases that do not meet applicant response time standards. However, officials reported that they did not maintain documentation showing the extent to which TSA had responded to applicants within their applicant response timeframe requirements. Officials reported that maintaining such performance data would be of use, but noted it was rare that they did not meet their initial adjudication standards and respond to applicants on or within established applicant response time requirements. Officials noted that functional limitations in TSA’s Screening Gateway reporting system limits their ability to efficiently run reports showing the extent to which TSA responds to applicants within required timeframes. A senior OIA Program Management Division official reported it was her understanding that the division would have to obtain the capability to automatically run applicant response time reports from TSA’s Technology Infrastructure Modernization program, known as TIM. However, we reviewed TIM program documentation and did not find this data management capability requirement in TIM planning documents. We raised this issue with TSA TIM program officials, and in response to our inquiry, in May 2013, the TIM program added documentation of this requirement to its plans and reported that the capability would be available to the Adjudication Center beginning in March 2014 for TWIC program cases, and by 2016 for surface and aviation program cases.

Caseload size. The Adjudication Center generally did not meet its contract caseload performance standards and experienced backlogs for its TWIC and HME program caseloads the majority of the time between October 2010 and January 2013. According to TSA contractor evaluation and performance reports, the Adjudication Center requires its contract workforce to maintain a total number of new TWIC, HME, and Aviation Workers cases at or below 1,500 cases—and Adjudication Center officials told us that a caseload above this threshold was considered a backlog. Adjudication Center data we reviewed for the period of October 2010 through January 2013 showed that the Adjudication Center had a backlog of HME cases approximately 60 percent of the time and TWIC cases approximately 61 percent of the time. In addition, the Adjudication Center had a backlog of Aviation Worker cases approximately 15 percent of the time from October 2010 through March 2012. Moreover, many of these backlogs were far higher than the Adjudication Center’s 1,500 caseload standard. For example, the Adjudication Center had a backlog of more than 4,000 HME cases roughly 16 percent of the time (20 of 122 weeks) during this period. Figure 2 shows Adjudication Center caseload levels for TWIC, HME, and Aviation Worker cases from October 2010 through January 2013.

According to Adjudication Center officials and TSA documentation we reviewed, technical issues and a lack of sufficiently trained contract adjudicators contributed to the workload backlogs at the Adjudication Center. First, the Adjudication Center operations manager reported that technical problems with its case reporting systems had contributed to both challenges in assessing workload backlogs and, in some cases, growth in the backlog itself. For example, the Screening Gateway systems, which the Adjudication Center relies on for processing applicant cases and communicating results to TSA enrollment centers, has experienced periodic technical errors that have delayed the Adjudication Center’s ability to process new cases. According to TSA evaluation and performance reports we reviewed, between February 2012 and August 2012, TSA was unable to evaluate contractor performance in meeting its workload on several occasions, including approximately 3 months, because of technical problems with its case management systems. Adjudication Center officials reported that TSA’s Office of Technology was pursuing a solution to the technical errors with a solution expected by May 2012; however, as of May 2013 this had not been corrected. They also reported that TSA plans to replace this system with a more functional system through its TIM program, but as noted earlier, according to TSA’s schedule for the program and TSA officials, this system is not scheduled to be fully operational until 2016. In addition, since April 2012 TSA has experienced technical problems related to the Designated Aviation Channeler program that TSA uses to process Aviation Worker program cases into the Screening Gateway systems. According to TSA officials, technical problems with one of its vendors were delaying processing of cases and returning previously adjudicated cases into the Adjudication Center’s new caseload queue and not distinguishing between the two sets of cases. This was delaying processing time and Adjudication Center management was unable to determine the true extent of its new caseload. TSA officials responsible for managing the Designated Aviation Channeler program reported that they had been in discussions with the vendor since April 2012 to address the technical processing issues, and as of May 2013, the vendor was in the process of implementing corrective actions.

Another factor contributing to growth in the workload backlog according to TSA Adjudication Center management officials and a contractor performance report we reviewed has been the lack of trained adjudicators provided by the contractor. According to a senior Adjudication Center official, the contractor lacked a sufficient number of staff who had been certified as self approvers, and this had required the Center’s limited federal staff to assume additional responsibilities and reduced the Center’s progress in meeting its caseload. Adjudication Center officials reported that they were working with the contractor to address this issue. We discuss the Adjudication Center’s contractor-related staffing issues, and actions to address them, in more detail later in this report.

The Adjudication Center’s Contractor Met TSA’s Accuracy Rate, but the Rate Does not Include Key Information

For its third key performance measure, TSA requires its contract adjudicators to maintain an average accuracy rate of at least 95 percent. According to Adjudication Center data, from August 2011 to December 2012, the Adjudication Center’s contract workforce met TSA’s accuracy standard for the TWIC, HME, and Aviation Worker programs. However, the accuracy rate is not a complete representation of Adjudicator contract accuracy because it does not include evaluation of a key population of cases. According to Adjudication Center officials, the Adjudication Center’s average accuracy rate is generally based on error rates identified from a daily review of all cases where adjudicators found an applicant was disqualified, but reviewers found an applicant should not have been (i.e., incorrectly disqualified). However, according to officials, this calculation generally does not include those cases where adjudicators had approved applicants, but reviewers found they should have been disqualified (i.e., incorrectly approved). For example, according to our analysis of TSA data, approvals comprised over 90 percent of the Adjudication Center’s TWIC and HME caseload from August 2011 to January 2013—and TSA reviewed roughly 7 percent of these approvals. In this way, the average accuracy rate TSA uses to evaluate the performance of its contractor is incomplete and limited because it does not include the extent contract adjudicators incorrectly approved applicants.

The Adjudication Center official responsible for reporting the accuracy rate told us that the accuracy rate of the contract workforce includes only those cases that were incorrectly found to have disqualifying factors because that is how the contract evaluation standards were established. The official noted that the Adjudication Center processes included a review of all trainee adjudicators approved cases and a separate quality assurance review process to spot check approved cases to identify errors among all adjudicators who are certified to approve cases without further review. However, the official reported that these performance measurement practices were not documented and that a lack of staffing capacity had limited the extent to which the Adjudication Center conducted the quality assurance spot checks—with the Center meeting only about two-thirds of its 10 percent goal for the number of cases selected for spot checking. Nonetheless, the results of this quality assurance review are not factored into the rate TSA uses to measure contractor accuracy performance and award funds to its contractor.

Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government specifies the need to comprehensively identify risks and consider all significant interactions. Once risks have been identified, they should be analyzed for possible effect. Moreover, internal control and all transactions and other significant events need to be clearly documented, and the documentation should be readily available for review. The overall accuracy rate calculated by the Adjudication Center is generally limited to incorrectly disqualified cases and does not include incorrectly approved cases. In this way, TSA does not have a representative assessment of the Adjudication Center’s average accuracy rate. If error rates for approved cases were included in its evaluation, the Adjudication Center’s reported average accuracy rate may ultimately be higher or lower than it has reported—but it will remain unclear until the Adjudication Center captures this information in its accuracy rate. Determining the performance of the workforce in adjudicating security threat assessments for this population is important for overseeing adjudicator performance and identifying cases where the Adjudication Center is incorrectly approving applicants. By developing and documenting an accuracy rate measure that includes data on both types of incorrectly adjudicated cases (approved and disqualified), the Adjudication Center can determine an accuracy rate that comprehensively captures accuracy performance and enables Adjudication Center management to more effectively identify and address performance issues among its workforce.

The Adjudication Center’s Manual Performance Management Process is not Documented

Since beginning operations in 2005, Adjudication Center management officials told us that they have used a complex, manual process to track the performance data of its contract adjudicator workforce. In particular, because of functional limitations of TSA’s Screening Gateway systems, officials reported that the Adjudication Center lacks an automated process for tracking adjudicator performance of the estimated 7,500 to 10,000 security threat assessment cases that adjudicators process each week. As a result, Adjudication Center management has used a cumbersome, manual process to track case production and performance of its contract adjudicator workforce. For example, each week, one adjudication center official is responsible for reviewing contractor reported caseload information, compiling spreadsheets summarizing contractor performance, verifying and reconciling the information with the contractor, and preparing weekly summary reports for distribution to TSA credentialing program stakeholders. Adjudication Center management told us that it has used these reports to measure Adjudication Center performance and support oversight of its contract adjudicator workforce.

The manual process exists because, according to Adjudication Center officials, TSA’s Screening Gateway case management systems were not designed to meet the functional requirements of the Adjudication Center for tracking contractor operational performance, and TSA has been unsuccessful to date in developing a technical solution to do so. TSA officials recognized that the system did not meet the needs of the Adjudication Center and reported that the agency’s TIM program would replace the Screening Gateway systems and enable the adjudication center to automate its case tracking and performance requirements. However, as noted earlier, TSA officials reported that this new system is not scheduled to be fully operational until 2016.

In the meantime, however, Adjudication Center management officials reported that they had not documented the manual process currently in use. Adjudication Center management officials told us that they had placed some information on an internal web sharing system in the past, but that this information was neither thorough nor updated to reflect the case management reporting system that the Adjudication Center has used since 2010—when TSA began its most recent contract for Adjudication Center staff. According to Adjudication Center officials, time constraints in meeting the Adjudication Center’s workload of security threat assessments had been a factor that had prevented the Operations Manager from updating or developing new documentation of the procedures in recent years. Further, given the complexity of the process and that two officials were familiar it, a senior Adjudication Center management official said that documenting this process would be of value should the two officials be unavailable.

Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government specifies the need for appropriate documentation of transactions and internal control.

Internal control and all transactions and other significant events need to be clearly documented, and the documentation should be readily available for review. The documentation should be included in directives, policies, or manuals to help ensure operations are carried out as intended. Documenting the Adjudication Center’s case reporting performance measurement practices is important to allow someone unfamiliar with this process to assume responsibilities in the event of attrition by the Adjudication Center managers. This is particularly important considering the complexity of the Adjudication Center’s case performance reporting process and TSA’s need to ensure effective performance and operational continuity in its security threat assessments.

TSA Offices Can Strengthen Coordination to Ensure Effective Adjudication Center Workload Planning

Implementing credentialing-related programs is a shared responsibility between the Program Management Division in TSA’s OIA and the Adjudication Center in OLE/FAMS. Officials from these offices reported taking various actions to ensure its offices coordinate information related to security threat assessment adjudication workload planning and performance. These include: Sharing weekly Adjudication Center performance reports: These reports include information for the TWIC, Aviation Worker, and HME programs such as the number of cases the Adjudication Center receives for each of these programs during the prior week, the number of cases ready for adjudication, and the number of applicants who have sought redress based on initial determinations of ineligibility. The three program managers for TSA’s maritime, aviation, and surface credentialing programs reported that they rely on these reports to ensure the program offices are meeting workload demands for the various credentialing programs TSA supported, and to identify and develop strategies to address performance challenges.

Convening monthly program management review meetings: These meetings are used to share information relating to changes that may impact the Adjudication Center’s workload. As part of these meetings, the Adjudication Center contractor provides a monthly report which provides details pertaining to contractor staffing levels and changes, training status, contractor accuracy rates, and challenges in need of resolution.

Developing spend plans: Adjudication Center and the OIA Program Management Division officials meet to develop a spend plan to support the credentialing programs’ annual budgets and discuss population projections for the programs that would affect Adjudication Center workload. For example, the Aviation Worker program manager reported that the workload had increased by about 5 percent annually, and that this information was used to inform the Adjudication Center’s spend plan.

Notwithstanding these actions, opportunities exist for the Adjudication Center and OIA Program Division to strengthen their coordination. While officials with the two offices coordinate on a routine basis to share information on workload completion, they do not have a process in place to ensure that information in the Adjudication Center’s staffing plan—such as caseload projections and associated staffing needs—reflects the mutual understanding of both Adjudication Center and credentialing program management officials. For instance, Adjudication Center management officials have periodically updated a staffing plan that they use to guide Adjudication Center workforce planning. However, an Adjudication Center program management official reported that while the staffing plan had been shared with credentialing program managers in the past, it had not been shared in recent years. He reported that a prior plan had been shared with the OIA Program Management Division to communicate staffing needs, and said that sharing the updated versions of the staffing plan with the Program Management Division may be valuable for guiding decisions on workforce planning.

OIA Program Management Division officials reported that they were unfamiliar with the Adjudication Center’s staffing plan and questioned workload projections in the Adjudication center’s current staffing plan. For example, the current Adjudication Center staffing plan cites an anticipated regulation that will address the security threat assessment process and that according to the plan would double the Adjudication Center’s security threat assessment workload from 500,000 to 1 million per year by the end of fiscal year 2014, and triple the workload by the end of fiscal year 2015. In October 2012, we shared this staffing plan with the OIA Program Management Division Manager responsible for Aviation programs and that official questioned the accuracy of the aviation worker workload increase projections in the staffing plan. The official said that TSA had yet to issue this regulation and that the timeline for doing so would take longer than officials had initially planned. Thus, the projected workload increases in the Adjudication Center’s staffing plan would not be realized, and the plan would need to be revised. However, as of March 2013, the Adjudication Center’s staffing plan had not been updated.

According to key collaboration practices that we have identified, federal agencies engaged in collaborative efforts need to create the means to monitor and evaluate their efforts to enable them to identify areas for improvement. Reporting on these activities can help key decision makers within the agencies, as well as clients and stakeholders, obtain feedback for improving both policy and operational effectiveness. Such reporting mechanisms can then be used to modify plans. Moreover, a focus on results, as envisioned by the Government Performance and Results Act, as amended, implies that federal programs contributing to the same or similar results should collaborate to ensure that goals are consistent and, as appropriate, program efforts are mutually reinforcing.

In this way, ensuring these components have access to respective workforce planning documents by establishing a mechanism for OIA Program Management Division and Adjudication Center officials to share and reconcile information included in the Adjudication Center’s staffing plan updates, such as timelines for anticipated workload growth, will help ensure TSA is using accurate workload projections to guide the Adjudication Center’s workforce planning.

TSA Has Made Limited Progress in Addressing Risks Posed by Using Contract Employees to Adjudicate Security Threat Assessments

TSA Assessment Identified Risks in the Adjudication Center’s Use of Contractors

Between January 2011 and September 2011, TSA conducted and completed its DHS required BWS assessment for the Adjudication Center contract and determined that the adjudicator position represented work that is “closely associated with inherently governmental functions” and that an excessive risk exists by allowing contractors to make security credential approvals without sufficient federal oversight. According to the assessment, the adjudicator functions performed by the contractor are critical to TSA’s accomplishment of the security threat assessment process to ensure terrorist and other security threats are identified and prevented from gaining credentialed access to critical U.S. transportation system infrastructure. The assessment found that TSA was reliant upon contractors for making decisions regarding criminal history and immigration status for a majority of applicants and if contractors were to continue performing the adjudicator function, the government would need to provide continuous and substantive oversight of them to ensure successful performance. However, the assessment found that the Adjudication Center did not have an effective oversight process in place to do so—noting that the federal government staffing at the Adjudication Center is not sufficient to adequately oversee contractor case processing for quality control, as contract staff have independent decision making ability on the majority of cases. Further, the assessment noted that the Adjudication Center’s use of a mixed contractor and government workforce was inefficient. For example, according to the assessment, for every contractor work hour, a federal government employee must check that work and this had led federal government staff to work more than 2,500 overtime and compensation hours over the preceding year—an inefficient and duplicative process that would not be necessary if the workforce were all federal government officers.

In light of these factors, in October 2011, TSA’s BWS Departmental Working Group determined that the adjudicator function was closely associated with inherently governmental functions and recommended TSA end the Adjudication Center’s reliance on a contract workforce and convert to an all federal employee workforce. The working group reported that doing so was designed to improve the Adjudication Center’s security threat assessment processing by having a better oversight process, streamlining overall operations, reducing training requirements, and better managing resources.

TSA Has Been Delayed in Implementing Workforce Conversion

TSA has been delayed in implementing the proposed workforce conversion at the Adjudication Center. According to TSA’s May 2012 Adjudication Center conversion plan, TSA offices were to take several actions before the Adjudication Center may begin implementing its conversion plan and hiring a new federal employee workforce; however, these steps have generally not been implemented. For instance, as of May 2013, responsible stakeholders in TSA’s BWS effort, including the Office of Human Capital and OLE/FAMS, reportedly had not approved the plan—necessary steps before the plan can proceed to TSA leadership, and ultimately, DHS for review. According to the conversion plan, TSA proposed to convert to a government adjudicator workforce by hiring TSA employees during fiscal years 2013 and 2014—with the hiring to be completed by the end of calendar year 2013. However, as of May 2013, TSA had not begun hiring its new federal workforce and TSA officials reported that the agency had not determined new timelines to do so.

TSA officials attributed the agency’s delays in implementing the Adjudication Center conversion plan to its prioritization on implementing agency reorganization efforts. According to a senior TSA official, implementing the BWS assessment was delayed because TSA was undergoing a large reorganization and agency resources were prioritized to that effort. With this reorganization completed in January 2013, the official reported that implementing the conversion plan would become a greater priority.

TSA Has Not Updated and Approved the Conversion Plan and Key Plan Elements are Unclear

TSA’s delay in acting on the recommendations of Adjudication Center conversion has rendered the implementation timelines and key hiring level and cost information in its May 2012 conversion plan outdated or unclear and TSA has not updated the plan to reflect these changes. In particular, TSA’s plan to convert to an all-federal Adjudication Center workforce has not been updated although information in this plan, such as the timeline for hiring federal employees and cost information, is no longer valid or is unclear. For example:

The implementation schedule in TSA’s plan is no longer valid.

TSA officials responsible for managing the conversion effort acknowledged that the timelines for implementing its plan had been delayed, and that TSA would not complete its workforce conversion by the end of calendar year 2013 as proposed in its plan. TSA officials reported that determining a revised schedule for the Adjudication Center conversion was dependent on various factors, such as when responsible TSA offices completed their respective reviews, and when OLE/FAMS approved the plan and sent it to TSA leadership for review. TSA officials reported that TSA did not have timelines for when this would occur.

Implementing the in-sourcing plan may present a cost saving opportunity to TSA, but TSA is unclear on extent of those savings. According to an August 2012 OLE/FAMS memorandum, converting from contractor to federal employees at the Adjudication Center would save the federal government over $5.4 million in fiscal years 2013 and 2014. However, TSA’s May 2012 conversion plan reports that the conversion plan would result in approximately $1 million in savings, rather than the $5.4 million cited in an August 2012 OLE/FAMS memorandum. According to the May 2012 plan, TSA used the DHS Modular Cost Table to determine the potential cost savings from converting to a federal employee workforce at the Adjudication Center. TSA budget officials reported that they could not determine why the cost savings estimates varied between the May 2012 conversion plan and the August 2012 memorandum. The officials reported that the cost savings estimate was still speculative and that TSA would need to revisit its calculations. As of May 2013, TSA had provided no further information.

TSA officials involved in the BWS Adjudication Center conversion noted that the delays in implementing the plan may pose challenges for TSA. For example, TSA’s contract for the Adjudication Center is a performance-based contract, with 1 option year remaining that would begin in February 2014 and run to January 2015. The official reported that continuing the contract would delay TSA from potential cost savings, while the cost to TSA continuing the contract increases 3 percent per option year. Officials reported that if they did not begin hiring new federal employees by August 2013, they would need to begin the process to recompete the Adjudication Center staffing contract to ensure continuity of operations in the case that TSA does not implement its conversion plan.

According to DHS BWS guidance, the more important the function, the more important it is to have internal capability to maintain control of the department’s mission and operations. TSA’s BWS assessment found that (1) TSA lacked sufficient internal capacity to control its use of contractors in Adjudication Center mission and operations, (2) TSA’s reliance on a contractor workforce carried excessive risk, (3) the adjudicator functions were closely associated with inherently governmental functions, and (4) that the positions should be insourced.

This assessment was made almost 2 years ago. While senior TSA Adjudication Center management officials support implementation of the plan, collectively, TSA has not mitigated the risks and operational inefficiencies identified in the DHS BWS assessment. Moreover, TSA has not completed its internal review of the conversion plan, including determining a revised implementation schedule as well hiring target levels and cost information. Completing this review, determining this information, and updating the conversion plan to ensure the plan reflects current conditions and an estimation of cost savings will help TSA and DHS decision makers by providing a roadmap for moving forward. Finally, implementing TSA’s Adjudication Center workforce conversion will be important to ensure TSA has sufficient and appropriate adjudication personnel to make the decisions that may deny or allow individuals unescorted access to the nation’s critical transportation infrastructure.

Conclusions

TSA’s Adjudication Center plays a critical role by conducting security threat assessments to ensure individuals posing security threats are identified and are not granted TSA-related credentials for, among other things, unescorted access to secure areas of the nation’s transportation systems. However, the Adjudication Center has faced challenges in fulfilling this role. First, while the Adjudication Center uses three key measures to evaluate the performance of the Adjudication Center’s contract workforce, it has not documented its methods and two of its measures are limited. For example, TSA’s timeliness measure does not capture the extent to which the agency has communicated its adjudication decision to the applicant in a timely manner—a key TSA requirement for its credentialing programs—and TSA officials reported they did not maintain such documentation. Ensuring that the TIM program provides the capability for Adjudication Center officials to efficiently prepare and document applicant response time reports would help ensure TSA meets standards and decisionmakers identify and address performance challenges. In addition, the Adjudication Center’s accuracy rate generally does not include cases in which contract adjudicators incorrectly approved an applicant—and these constitute roughly 90 percent of the Adjudication center’s caseload. Developing, documenting and implementing an accuracy rate that includes this information will provide TSA with a more complete assessment of the performance of its workforce—regardless of whether the members of that workforce are contractors or TSA employees.

Second, because of functional limitations in its case reporting systems, Adjudication Center management uses an undocumented, manual, process to track adjudicator performance. Documenting the Adjudication Center’s case reporting performance measurement practices is important to ensure continuity of operations in the event of attrition by the two Adjudication Center officials familiar with this process. Third, the Adjudication Center relies on its staffing plan to guide its workload planning decisions but has not shared updated versions of this plan with the credentialing program offices that it serves. Establishing a mechanism for the Adjudication Center to share and reconcile information included in the staffing plan updates, such as timelines for anticipated workload growth, would help improve internal coordination and support the Adjudication Center’s workload planning efforts.

Fourth, TSA’s 2011 BWS assessment for the Adjudication Center found that the adjudicator function is closely associated with inherently governmental functions and recommended that TSA insource its Adjudication Center workforce to mitigate the risks that contractors were making security credential approvals without sufficient federal oversight. Taking additional steps to end its use of contract adjudicators and convert to an all-federal employee adjudicator workforce would help TSA mitigate such risks, but it has been delayed in doing so. Completing its internal review and updating and documenting the conversion plan to ensure the plan reflects current condition conditions, including timelines for hiring, planned hiring numbers, and cost information would help TSA and DHS decision makers by providing a roadmap for moving forward. Finally, providing this plan to TSA and DHS leadership for review are important steps to help ensure TSA addresses the risks identified in the 2011 BWS assessment and has an appropriate workforce to make the decisions that may ultimately deny or allow individuals credentials for unescorted access to the nation’s critical transportation infrastructure.

Recommendations for Executive Action

We recommend that the Secretary of Homeland Security direct the TSA Administrator to take the following 5 actions:

To ensure that the Adjudication Center accuracy rate effectively captures the center’s accuracy in completing security threat assessments, the Adjudication Center should develop an accuracy rate measure that includes accuracy data for cases where adjudicators both approved and disqualified applicants, document this methodology, and implement the process.

To ensure continuity of case reporting, the Adjudication Center should document its case reporting performance management processes.

To ensure workforce planning is based on accurate workload projections, establish a mechanism for TSA’s OIA Program Management Division and OLE/FAMS Adjudication Center to share and reconcile information included in the Adjudication Center’s staffing plan updates, such as timelines for anticipated workload growth.

To advance efforts to address risks identified in the Adjudication update and document its Adjudication Center insourcing conversion plan to reflect revised schedule timeframes, cost and hiring level information, and review the updated Adjudication Center insourcing conversion plan, and provide it to TSA and DHS leadership for review and implementation approval.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report to DHS for review and comment. DHS, in written comments received July 2, 2013, concurred with all five of the recommendations in the report and identified actions taken, planned, or under way to implement the recommendations. Written comments are summarized below, and official DHS comments are reproduced in appendix II. In addition, DHS provided written technical comments, which we incorporated into the report, as appropriate.

In commenting on the draft report, DHS described efforts underway or planned to address our recommendations. DHS also noted that the Adjudication Center’s caseload performance measure of keeping backlogs below 1,500 cases is a self-imposed standard that TSA established to provide the best possible customer service to applicants. We agree that the Adjudication Center’s caseload performance measurement was developed by TSA. Regardless of source, however, TSA’s caseload standard is a contractual requirement and our analysis of TSA data found that the Adjudication Center contractor generally did not meet this requirement between October 2010 and January 2013. In addressing our recommendations, DHS concurred with our first recommendation that TSA should develop an accuracy rate that includes accuracy data for both cases where an applicant is approved and cases where an applicant is disqualified, document this methodology, and implement the process. DHS stated that TSA OIA will modify its current quality control process to include both approved and disqualified cases that will more accurately reflect the adjudications performed. Furthermore, DHS reported that it will develop, document, and formalize an accuracy rate measure that includes review of approved and disqualified cases. Such actions will ensure that the Adjudication Center’s accuracy rate measure provides a more comprehensive assessment of adjudicator performance.

DHS also concurred with our second recommendation that TSA should document the Adjudication Center’s case reporting performance management processes. DHS stated that while TSA anticipates that the current manual process will be phased out and replaced by an automated process as the TIM program is implemented, TSA OIA will document the current manual performance management process. DHS stated that documenting the process will confirm the Adjudication Center’s performance is accurately tracked and will also ensure continuity in the event of personnel turnover. These actions, if implemented effectively, should address the intent of our recommendation.

Regarding our third recommendation that OIA’s Program Management Division and the OLE/FAMS Adjudication Center should establish a mechanism to share and reconcile information included in the Adjudication Center’s staffing plan updates, such as timelines for anticipated workload growth, DHS concurred. DHS reported that the OIA Program Management Division and the OLE/FAMS Adjudication Center were already working to resolve the issues and had begun coordination to ensure security threat assessment workload estimates and the staffing plan are updated. DHS stated that TSA will formalize a quarterly review process between the Program Management Division and the Adjudication Center to meet and discuss these issues.

DHS concurred with our fourth recommendation to update and document the Adjudication Center’s insourcing conversion plan to reflect revised schedule timeframes and cost and hiring level information. In its comments, DHS stated that OIA is working with the DHS Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer to address any potential issues posed by using a mix of government employees and contractors. Furthermore, DHS reported that TSA will update its insourcing conversion plan to reflect current timelines, costs, and hiring levels. Such actions should improve TSA’s ongoing insourcing efforts. Lastly, DHS concurred with our fifth recommendation that TSA review the updated Adjudication Center insourcing conversion plan and provide it to TSA and DHS leadership for review and implementation approval. DHS stated that OIA has already begun updating the insourcing conversion plan and intends to provide it for review and approval. We will continue to monitor DHS’s efforts.

As arranged with your office, unless you publicly announce its contents earlier, we plan on no further distribution of this report until 30 days after its issue date. At that time, we will send copies of this report to the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Assistant Secretary for the Transportation Security Administration, and appropriate congressional committees. In addition, this report is available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-7141 or groverj@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. Key contributors to this report are acknowledged in appendix III.

Appendix I: TSA Organizational Chart with Key Offices with Responsibility for Implementing Security Threat Assessments

Figure 3 shows that responsibility for carrying out programs related to issuing credentials for transportation workers is divided among multiple Transportation Security Administration (TSA) offices. In particular, the TSA Office of Intelligence and Analysis manages transportation security credentialing programs—including the three largest programs: the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) program for maritime workers; the Hazardous Materials Endorsement (HME) program for truckers seeking a commercial driver’s license endorsement to carry hazardous materials; and the Aviation Worker program. Within the Office of Law Enforcement/Federal Air Marshal Service, the Adjudication Center is responsible for providing security threat assessment adjudication services to meet the workload needs of TSA programs.

Figure 3 TSA Organization Chart Showing Key Offices Responsible for Managing and Implementing Transportation Security Threat Assessment Programs, as of May 2013.

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact names above, David Bruno (Assistant Director), Jason Berman (Analyst-in-Charge), Carl Barden, Melissa Bogar, Jennifer Dougherty, Eric Hauswirth, Richard Hung, Thomas Lombardi, Stephen M. Lord, Steve Morris, Jessica Orr, Minette Richardson, Katherine Trimble, and Jonathan Tumin made key contributions to this report.