VA Directive 0710: Personnel Vetting Program

On September 8, 2025, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) issued a new personnel vetting policy that, among other things, attempts to conform the agency's suitability determination policy to new Office of Personnel Management (OPM) suitability regulations. The VA may make suitability determinations for competitive service and Senior Executive Service (SES) career applicants and appointees (i.e. new hires), and the policy states that its ability to make a suitability determination continues even after an application for a job is withdrawn. In a departure from previous practice, OPM's new regulations allow suitability actions against current employees who are not new hires. The new policy also makes changes to security vetting procedures. For example, for certain positions, "continuous vetting" replaces fully periodic reinvestigations for individuals occupying public trust and national security positions, a policy which predates the second Trump administration but which might not have been fully addressed in federal agencies' guidance on reinvestigations.