By Calvin Biesecker
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has begun scoping how it will put together its first ever Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR), a congressionally-mandated report that will examine the national homeland security strategy and provide long-term guidance for priorities, budgets, capabilities and policies.
Over the next few months the department will put together its program plan for the QHSR and then begin a preliminary analysis before taking a “pause” to let the incoming presidential administration have an opportunity to establish its priorities, Alan Cohn, deputy secretary for policy at DHS, told Defense Daily in an interview last week.
Once a new administration comes in next January, Cohn said it’s likely more studies and different issues will undertaken before a first draft is ready for comment. The final report is expected to be delivered in December 2009.
Congress last year in the 9/11 Commission Act authorized DHS to undertake the QHSR in FY ’09. The legislation outlines six major areas of focus, including updating the national homeland security strategy, prioritizing critical homeland security mission areas, identification of a budget plan, a description of policies and budget plans, an organizational assessment of DHS for alignment with homeland security strategy and missions, and a review and assessment of how the department will turn requirements developed in the review into an acquisition strategy and spending plans.
Portions of the report will take advantage of work already underway in the department. For example, in the wake of some troublesome technology programs within the department, such as the development of a next-generation radiation portal monitor and the integration of an electronic fence for border security, the DHS management directorate is already taking a broader look at how to better go about acquiring systems and technologies instead of focusing narrowly on procurement.
“So this review will be an opportunity to take a look at those functions among all the other functions of the department, talk about where we’ve been, what we have underway now in terms of improving and strengthening those processes and programs, and take the opportunity to lay out where we see that we should go,” Cohn said.
The QHSR has its conceptual origins in the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which the Defense Department uses to help shape how it will change to meet future challenges. Cohn said the QHSR will be different given a “different agency, different mission” and also because this will be DHS’ first cut at it.
“I don’t think this is going to be the same type of sweeping document that the QDR is but I do think it will be another contribution to maturing the department and the homeland security mission generally,” Cohn said.
By this summer, Cohn expects DHS will have identified the key issues it will focus on within the major focus areas proscribed by Congress and will have formed its advisory groups that will allow it to tap into its various component agencies and also across and outside the federal government.
“The homeland security mission is inherently interagency and inter-governmental,” Cohn said. “It involves non-governmental entities to a greater extent than DoD does.”
The creation of the QHSR will be advised by high-level informal working group consisting of participants from DHS headquarters and the component agencies, Cohn said.