Source · National Audit Office

Investigation into the performance of UK Security Vetting

Published: 18 Jan 2023 Recommendations: 5 Type: Value for Money NAO confirmed: 5 Department: Cabinet Office

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.

Dept: Cabinet Office Topics: Defence and national security nao.org.uk →

Recommendations

5 items

5 accepted 1 implemented 4 in progress

Rec	Recommendation	Addressee	Acceptance	Implementation
1	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; Ref Page 12, paragraph 26, point a · Implemented 2026/27	Cabinet Office	Accepted	In progress ✓ NAO
2	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 Ref Page 12, paragraph 26, point e · Implemented 04/2024	Cabinet Office	Accepted	Implemented ✓ NAO
3	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; Ref Page 12, paragraph 26, point b · Implemented 09/2024	Cabinet Office	Accepted	In progress ✓ NAO
4	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 Ref Page 12, paragraph 26, point c · Implemented 01/2025	Cabinet Office	Accepted	In progress ✓ NAO
5	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 Ref Page 12, paragraph 26, point d · Implemented 09/2024	Cabinet Office	Accepted	In progress ✓ NAO

Public Accounts Committee follow-up

1 report

The Public Accounts Committee examined this NAO report and published its own recommendations. The government responds to PAC recommendations via Treasury Minutes.

12 May 2023 Public Accounts C… Fifty-Third Report - The performance of UK Security Vetting — 12 recommendations · parliament.uk