Automated Questionnaire for Sensitive Positions, SF-86 (QSP System)

An automated, menu-driven system has been developed by Westinghouse Hanford Company/Boeing Computer Services Richland, Inc., for generation of electronic forms resembling the Questionnaire for Sensitive Positions, SF-86. The applicant or employee personal information is entered into databases through a series of custom screens, which are formatted to correspond to pages and sections of the form. The information may be queried and edited or may be extracted for printing. By storing a facsimile of the Questionnaire for Sensitive Positions form in the laser printer's memory, using electronic forms-generation software, an applicant or employee data file is merged with this electronic form image and printed together as one form. The applicant or employee data can be retained indefinitely with minimal file updates for the five-year reinvestigation or other investigations, as needed. In 1988, the Office of Personnel Management drastically revised the investigative form used as a source document in conducting background investigations. To manually produce the revised form, the Questionnaire for Sensitive Positions, the Westinghouse Hanford Company would have required an estimated increased staff effort of 32%. One alternative was to create a computer-aided system, the Automated Questionnaire for Sensitive Positions. Through development and implementation of the system, the need for additional staffing has been eliminated, the predetermined reinvestigation submission quotas have been maintained, and the Office of Personnel Management rejection rate has been reduced to less than 1 %. There are currently 20 known facilities successfully using the U.S. Department of Energy and Office of Personnel Management approved Automated Questionnaire for Sensitive Positions.