Performance Accountability Council’s Roadmap to Trusted 2.0 Rollout
The Performance Accountability Council (PAC), is a federal organization accountable to the President to ensure coordination across the Federal Government, align processes to the extent possible, drive reform efforts, and oversee implementation of reform. Last month, the PAC released its Trusted Workforce 2.0 implementation strategy to the executive branches.
What does this document do?
The Trusted Workforce 2.0 doc allows federal agencies to head toward the next stage of an enhanced, overhauled personnel security process, and shows that even as Continuous Vetting (CV) implementation moves forward, there is still more work to be done in improving the security clearance process.
The document states, “Trusted Workforce 2.0 reimagines what it means to establish and maintain a relationship of trust with an individual throughout their affiliation with the Government.”
The policy document aims, in short, to improve personnel security by overhauling the security clearance process, in turn working to end the backlog in pending security clearance investigations. It hopes to usher in a more relevant security clearance application process. After all, the policy framework has been in place since the 1950s.. This strategy follows a security clearance reform event hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance where Jason Miller, chair of the PAC, noted that 2022 would be the most significant year for personnel vetting.
The policy document indicates how personnel security reform efforts are headed out of the policy and idea state and into implementation across agencies. Trusted Workforce is taking a phased approach.
“Past reform efforts primarily leveraged a sequential approach—policy development, then planning, then implementation—leading to long delays between the policy formulation phases and the delivery of products and services to customers. Seeking opportunities to deliver results sooner and taking full advantage of the rebuild of the IT systems, TW 2.0 will leverage an iterative implementation approach, focusing on what is known currently with a high degree of confidence and publishing adjustments as needed,” the strategy document states.
So far it’s a success: it achieved the milestone of nearly eliminating that backlog and processing times have improved tremendously. What’s next?
The PAC outlined the following steps agencies to implement Trusted Workforce 2.0:
- Designating a Senior Implementation Official to be accountable for implementing TW 2.0.
- Examining resource needs to ensure adequate funding for the FY 2023 budget cycle and beyond.
- Evaluating existing personnel vetting business operations’ ability to support process changes for TW 2.0 vetting scenarios
- Analyzing and counting populations based on the proposed tier structures to prepare for pending policy and budgetary impacts for future fiscal year budgets.
- Reviewing and aligning internal policies and processes
- Coordinating with DCSA for their NBIS onboarding plan to include submission of a signed memorandum of understanding, if using or planning to use DCSA for investigative services.
- Continuing to develop and refine an agency-specific TW 2.0 implementation plan, which may include but is not limited to:
- Resource, budget, and business process impacts of continuous vetting (enrollment and alert management)
- Changes in vetting the workforce with three investigative tier levels
- How to address policy and operational gaps between current processes and TW 2.0
- Considerations for handling unique agency requirements
- Training needs to meet TW 2.0 requirements, including implementation of revised National Training Standards
- Agency-managed processes that may be conducted by ISPs as new services emerge
- Use of shared services (current and plans for future adoption) and decommissioning of internal agency tools or systems, where feasible
- Communications required to socialize TW 2.0 and continuous vetting elements such as reporting requirements and annual vetting appraisals with the workforce and employee unions (as applicable)
- Plans/protocols for information sharing
Trusted Workforce 2.0 is anticipated to be fully implemented throughout 2022, with more potential changes to criteria and standards expected in the coming months.
Are you Ready for the Trusted Workforce?
Please leave comments, we live for them – www.securityfirstassociates.com