Vetting Backlog Could Increase National Security Risks, MPs Warn

Undated file photo of the UK's Cabinet Office sign. (Lauren Hurley/PA)

“Unacceptable delays” in the security vetting of government staff may have resulted in an increase in national security risks, a select committee of MPs said.

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) published a report on Friday, accusing the Cabinet Office of failing to “get a grip” on national security vetting since it took over United Kingdom Security Vetting (UKSV) in April 2020.

Increased demand after the end of COVID-19 lockdowns and insufficient staffing levels mean the UKSV team was taking longer than expected to process many of the cases and had to put off the re-vetting of staff to manage the workload, the report said.

The PAC’s Labour chair, Dame Meg Hillier, accused the Cabinet Office of appearing “deaf” to concerns of risks and blocking UKDV’s attempts at reform.

The Cabinet Office denied the accusation, saying it has “worked closely with UKSV” to reduce the backlog.

Security and counterterrorism expert David Lowe told The Epoch Times the vetting backlog is “a big concern” as it could lead to understaffing problems or changes in existing personnel’s circumstances being missed.

Missed Performance Targets

UKSV provides vetting services for all government departments, many public bodies, and some private sector industries including the aviation industry, whose staff require security clearance.

The most common clearance levels are Counter Terrorist Checks (CTC), Security Checks (SC), and Developed Vetting (DV), which is the highest clearance level bar a handful of posts that require Enhanced DV checks.

UKSV has received requests to process an average of 164,700 CTC and SC clearances and 17,900 DV clearances per year, but the team has failed to hit its performance targets since 2021, according to a report published in January by the National Audit Office, on which the PAC’s report was built.

According to the report, UKSV aims to complete 85 percent of routine CTC/SC clearances within 25 days, but had missed the target every month since August 2021. The worst performance was seen in September 2022, in which only 15 percent of the checks were completed within 25 days.

With regard to the more complicated DV clearances, the team is expected to complete 85 of the cases within 95 days, but the target had not been met since May 2021. In April 2022, only 7 percent of the checks were done within the target time frame.

In the year 2022–2023, almost a third (30 percent) of the DV clearances took more than six months, compared to 4 percent in the year 2019–2020.

The service has also been missing its targets to complete priority cases for 23 out of 60 months in the case of DV and 30 out of 60 months for CTC/SC clearances, the report said.

The delays were caused by increased demand owing to reasons including the end of the lockdowns, the war in Ukraine, the beginning of aviation worker accreditation service, and insufficient staffing levels owing to an underestimation of demand.

The PAC report said the Cabinet Office has “failed to get a grip” of the service and hasn’t assessed the impact caused by government staff not having the appropriate level of security clearance.

It also said the department should have anticipated the increased demand, but was over-reliant on UKSV “customers” to forecast demand.

Re-Vetting Delay

The performance of UKSV has improved after the Cabinet Office introduced a delivery stabilisation plan in April 2022, with additional staff deployed. By November 2022, the average DV clearance processing time was 98 days, down from 177 days in April.

But part of the reduction in the backlog was achieved by delaying the re-vetting of staff who were meant to renew their DV clearances after seven years.

The Cabinet Office Government Security Board extended most DV renewal clearances in 2018, 2019, and 2020, with the renewal backlog contributing to the caseload in the year 2021–22. In the year 2022–23, the Government Security Steering Group again directed UKSV to extend all renewals by a year, apart from high-risk exceptions.

The performance target for renewal cases has also been extended to 200 days. By November 2022, the average DV renewal process took 255 days, up from 190 days in April.

UKSV claimed it had “thoroughly reviewed” renewals “with known red flags” and that prioritising new clearances was a “sensible risk-based decision,” according to the report, but the PAC said members are still concerned about the level of risk created by the repeated deferral of DV clearance renewals.

Lowe, senior research fellow at the Leeds Beckett University Law School, said the vetting backlog is “a big concern.”

“These checks are about keeping us all safe, that we have people in place who have been vetted and are reliable security-wise,” he said.

Referring to his own experience of renewing DV clearances as a police officer, Lowe said the police, the Home Office, the Ministry of Defence, the security services, and the military all have personnel who require the clearances and they have to be renewed because “things can change in seven years.”

He cited the example of a security guard at the British Embassy in Berlin who was jailed in February for spying for Russia, saying people can “change their mind on their views politically and socially.”

“Also people get married. Whom they’re married to, what influence ... and so you can see how wide it is. It really is looking into your background, what you’re doing, and so on,” he said.

“We’re looking at someone who’s got a safe pair of hands, but can they keep the safe pair of hands while in that role.”

A spokesperson for the Cabinet Office said: “Security vetting is a key priority and we have worked closely with UKSV to ensure it has the resources needed to deal with the surge in demand in the last year. As a result, turnaround times for the highest level of clearance have more than halved from April 2022 to April 2023.

“We are continuing to reform and improve vetting processes while maintaining the necessary protocols for national and personnel security. This has already resulted in over 200,000 security checks being successfully completed in the last year with the highest annual level of Developed Vetting clearances since UKSV was created in 2017.”