The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of Personnel Management plan to implement policy changes under a new framework to speed up the vetting and security clearance procedures for federal personnel, Federal News Network reported Thursday.

One of the changes ODNI and OPM will implement is reducing the number of tiers of background investigations from five to three: trusted/low-risk, secret and top secret.

Bill Evanina, director of ODNI’s National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said agencies will also change how it will establish trust with prospective employees to provide contractors and personnel more flexibility to facilitate transitions within the government.

Those include the replacement of periodic investigations with continuous vetting; use of electronic video interviews and other tools to screen a federal contractor or employee; and creation of a “trusted information provider program.”

The changes are part of a framework that officials from OPM, ODNI and other members of the Performance Accountability Council approved in March 2018 as part of the Trusted Workforce 2.0 initiative.

Evanina said he is scheduled on March 8 to inform agency leaders of the framework, which is being reviewed by the White House.

