Value for Money
Investigation into the performance of UK Security Vetting
This report looks at how UKSV has performed in providing national security vetting services since 2018; what it is doing to ensure security vetting is completed in a timely way to ensure the continued protection and functioning of government; and what it is doing to modernise and reform.
Recommendations (5)
Source: NAO Recommendations Tracker · PAC follow-up below
Cabinet Office
Rec 1
Accepted
Work in Progress
The Cabinet Office should:
a recognise the importance of modernising the national security vetting process
and work quickly to design an implementation plan with key milestones in place;
Cabinet Office
Rec 2
Accepted
Implemented
The Cabinet Office should ensure that there is sufficient resilience within UKSV to react to new events that might drive increased demand for security vetting
Cabinet Office
Rec 3
Accepted
Work in Progress
The Cabinet Office should ensure that governance structures are appropriate to enable effective challenge and scrutiny of UKSV without becoming an impediment to progressing work on national security vetting;
Cabinet Office
Rec 4
Accepted
Work in Progress
The Cabinet Office should create a set of performance metrics that measures whether clearances are being processed in a timely and accurate way that meets customer needs and avoids perverse incentives
Cabinet Office
Rec 5
Accepted
Work in Progress
The Cabinet Office should recognise, and be clear across government, that given UKSV?s agreed resources, prioritising certain types of clearances will have knock-on impacts, both on routine clearance and on delivering long-term transformation
Parliamentary Committee Follow-Up
The Public Accounts Committee examined this NAO report and published its own recommendations. The government responds to PAC recommendations via Treasury Minutes.
Fifty-Third Report - The performance of UK Security Vetting
Public Accounts Committee
· 12 May 2023
· 11 recommendations