Position Sensitivity

Certain positions within USDA entail sensitive duties including access to classified information. Misconduct, illegal action or even inaction on the part of an employee in a designated sensitive position could directly compromise the national security. In the interests of national security, care must be exercised in selecting individuals to fill sensitive positions.

Valid codes for position sensitivity designations are:
1. Nonsensitive
2. Noncritical Sensitive
3. Critical Sensitive
4. Special Sensitive
5. Moderate Risk
6. High Risk

Position sensitivity determines the type of security investigation required before individuals can be assigned to sensitive positions and granted the applicable clearance level (e.g., SECRET, TOP SECRET, etc.). Security investigations for sensitive positions often take up to a year to complete and are quite costly. Therefore, it is important that only positions which truly meet the criteria of sensitive be designated as such.

Normally, the authority to designate position sensitivity is delegated from managers to first level supervisors. Therefore, the manager's responsibility is to ensure sensitivity designations of positions under their control are correct and consistent with security access requirements. The sensitivity designation is annotated PD cover sheet (OF-8) and in the fully automated system for classification (AVUE) of position description.