Defence Department's MyClearance security vetting system drags out clearance wait times

MyClearance, a digital one-stop shop for government officials and external contractors seeking security clearances, launched in November last year but has been plagued by technical issues with at least one national security agency having to revert to manual "workarounds".

It comes years after the Auditor-General's office first identified major deficiencies in the process, imploring the former government to come up with an improved system.

Assistant Defence Minister Matt Thistlethwaite said he is receiving weekly briefings as the Department of Defence's security vetting agency races to resolve the program's failures.

Mr Thistlethwaite slammed the former Coalition government for failing to properly oversee the project, saying the issues should have been "ironed out" well before its launch.

"We were given assurances that it was all going to plan and then once it went live, it failed," Mr Thistlethwaite told The Canberra Times.

The Defence-owned system, which was built by tech services company Accenture for more than $100 million, is incompatible with the systems used by the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation.

Baseline clearances, the lowest security level, are being processed without major issues but Mr Thistlethwaite said officials and contractors seeking access to the country's most secretive information are experiencing longer wait times due to the issues.

"It's clear that there's been a lack of adequate planning by the previous government, and certainly a lack of oversight of the project as it progressed," he said.

"They are issues that should have been ironed out prior to the system going live [but] because of that lack of oversight, we've now got these problems."

Staff have been redeployed to deal with the problems along with complaints, Mr Thistlethwaite said, while a taskforce is working to resolve the issues.

The Office of National Intelligence is one of the agencies experiencing problems with the new MyClearance system after its director-general, Andrew Shearer, told a senate estimates hearing his agency had been impacted.

Mr Shearer said his staff could not access the system's portal for vetting application information and had resorted to workarounds, such as gaining information over the phone.

"My staff are in daily contact, and we're aware that there's a very intensive effort underway, led by Defence, to rectify the situation," he said.

"The myClearance system, as I understand it, is meant to produce very rapid transfer of that data. In some cases, we've experienced hours of delay, or numbers of days of delay, in accessing that data."

Around 43,5000 vetting applications across the four levels - baseline, negative one and two, and positive - remained open, Defence Department deputy secretary Celia Perkins revealed at an estimates hearing this week.

Ms Perkins said the total cost of the MyClearance project amounted to $307.4 million with work first beginning in 2016.

She added there had been "substantial challenges" since the system went live on November 28, and had caused "continued challenges" in managing vetting timeframes.

Two senior officials and 50 additional customer service staff have been brought over to resolve issues and deal with complaints.

Ms Perkins said she expected all the bugs to be fixed by the end of February.

"After we work through these next few weeks of technical remediation and customer support, we will be undertaking a project implementation review where we'll seek to learn lessons and understand about how we have managed risks and how we've found ourselves in this position," she told senators.

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In a statement to The Canberra Times, a spokesperson for Defence said it was aware of the system's issues and was working to quickly resolve them.

"AGSVA is continuing to accept and process security clearances," the spokesperson said.

Mr Thistlethwaite said once it had been resolved, he expected the backlog could be dealt with in a "speedier fashion".

"The backlog is going to take some time to work through," Mr Thistlethwaite said.

"But I'm confident that we will be able to eventually get the technical fixes right and, over time, reduce that backlog and hopefully have the system working as it was intended to."