Pentagon Scraps Intelligence Pay-for-Performance System

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has decided to scrap the Defense Civilian Intelligence Personnel System, a pay-for-performance system covering many of the department's intelligence employees, Federal Times reports.

Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence James Clapper, who is leaving his position to become the next director of national intelligence, wrote in a memo yesterday that except for employees at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the intelligence workforce will be placed in a system similar to the General Schedule.

A report from the National Academy of Public Administration issued in June concluded that DCIPS was rushed into place and gave bigger raises to higher-ranking employees. As a result, employees had lost faith in the system.

But NAPA did not recommend scrapping the system, instead pushing for a "more thoughtful, incremental and methodical approach" to implementation, better training, clearer communication with employees, creating a formal process for gathering feedback from workers, and establishing a program management office to increase accountability.