Washington, D.C. - U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Linda M. Springer today announced OPM has begun a pilot program in which completed background investigations will be electronically transferred to the U.S. Army Central Personnel Security Clearance Facility (CCF) for adjudication of clearances under its jurisdiction.

"OPM has worked diligently over the past two years to increase the speed with which Federal employees receive their security clearance," Director Springer said. "Through electronic transfer, agencies will have instant access to completed background investigations, ensuring more timely and efficient adjudication of clearance cases."

The program is expected to dramatically reduce the time necessary to transfer documents to the CCF for adjudication, which is the step at which employees are awarded clearance. Currently, completed investigations are normally delivered through the U.S. Mail or other hand-delivery means. Electronic transfer will reduce delivery time by as little as seven to as many as 13 days, providing a savings on postage and man-power costs as well. The program represents an important step in meeting the timeliness requirements of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.

In addition, the program will enable the CCF to process cases electronically through their Clearance Adjudication Tracking System (CATS). CATS has the potential to perform automatic triage of cases based on OPM codes and more efficiently manage cases electronically, helping eliminate man-hour costs associated with tracking and processing cases manually in the current paper-based environment.

If successful, OPM expects to extend electronic transfer to all agencies by October 1st.