DoD Consolidated Adjudications Facility News

The DoD Consolidated Adjudications Facility (CAF) was already utilizing telework capabilities for their personnel reviewing and adjudicating background investigations prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. That capability enabled the DoD CAF to keep pushing through the backlog and reducing the inventory to a steady state. Here is are some of their most recent accomplishments according to a recent posting on the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) website:

–          For the first time in two years, the DoD CAF achieved a healthy inventory of background investigations in the pipeline. This is a significant accomplishment as its inventory’s high mark was 202K in February 2019, due to receiving an influx of cases as the investigative inventory drastically reduced. Through hard work and various process improvements to maximize efficiencies, they adjudicated nearly 128,000 cases (including background investigations; continuous evaluation alerts, incident reports and customer service requests) to return the inventory to steady state.

–          The DoD CAF is working with its customers to mitigate any issues. The call center continues to support our customers using email (address below) inquiries.  So far, they responded to over 9,400 emails from security managers and facility security officers.

–          The DoD CAF modified their correspondence procedures to allow for increased electronic processing ensuring subject, security manager and facility security officer’s abilities to respond to inquiries.

–          Working with DOHA, the DoD CAF is exploring the use of alternative capabilities for conducting psychological evaluations at military treatment facilities and through the industry psychological evaluation contract service providers. 

Another recent change implemented by the DoD CAF, in order to standardize adjudicative procedures, now allows adjudicators to make clearance eligibility determinations to the highest level of access the investigation allows (e.g., Tier 5 allows Top Secret) for DoD military personnel even if their current job may only need lower access.