DCSA website says they only “adjudicate and grant clearances for DCSA employees and contractors”. Is this correct?

The above info is on DCSA website under - Investigation, Adjudication and Clearance Status Check - topic

DCSA= Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency

Google DCSA adjudication to get to the above topic

  1. I’m confused with the statement DCSA only adjudicates and grants clearances for its employees and contractors. Several articles have stated DCSA will do after1 Oct 2019 all the clearances vetting for DoD agencies from submission to investigation to adjudication to record-keeping. Everything will be under one roof.

So which is it? DSCA does all clearance processing vetting for all DoD agencies or only for its employees and contractors?

  1. Or Does DCSA only do Background Investigation and each DoD agency does the clearance adjudication?

  2. What happened if your clearance investigation started with OPM before 1 Oct 2019, who will do the adjudication? OPM, DCSA or the DoD agency?

Unless I am mistaken adjudication is ALWAYS done by the agency granting clearance. The investigation may be done by a different group. I don’t know why one agency would allow another to adjudicate a clearance.

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Thanks for your reply. I read your posts and you know a lot about the clearance process. You are correct. When I first received my TS/SCI in 2003 it was adjudicated by the agency/component Central Adjudication Facility (CAF) at Fort Meade.

Now that DCSA took over OPM background investigations role there are several articles that imply they also issue clearance adjudications.
However, in another federal magazine article it says, DoD Consolidated Adjudications Facility (CAF) located at Fort Meade is “the sole authority to determine security clearance eligibility of non-Intelligence DoD personnel …”
Perhaps as you stated each DoD agency working now for DoD CAF makes the final adjudication for its employees.

DoD CAF is an organization under DCSA. That’s why some article states the entire clearance process will be under DCSA. They will do background investigation and its subordinate organization DoD CAF will do the clearance adjudication.

https://www.dcsa.mil/mc/pv/adjudications/

https://www.dodcaf.whs.mil/

From DoD CAF faqs:

  1. Who conducts the (Background) investigation?

https://www.dodcaf.whs.mil/faqs#faq-6

  1. Who issues the personnel security clearance?

https://www.dodcaf.whs.mil/faqs#faq-17

Answer to Q3:
OPM finishes the investigation they started prior transferring tasks to DCSA. DoD Consolidated Adjudication Facility (CAF) for the DoD component (Army, Air Force, Navy…) evaluates investigation and adjudicates the clearance.

In my case OPM started investigation before the 1 Oct 2019 DCSA transition. Per my adjudication email OPM completed my investigation in December 2019. DoD CAF Army adjudicated my TS/SCI in January 2020. This is my second TS/SCI PR.

Thanks for the info. Yes! OPM closes the investigation and DoD CAF issued the adjudication. DoD CAF adjudicated my TS/SCI on January 15, 2020.