View source for Excepted service

{{Short description|U.S. federal civil service component}}
The '''excepted service''' is the part of the [[United States federal civil service]] that is not part of either the [[competitive service]] or the [[Senior Executive Service (United States)|Senior Executive Service]]. It allows streamlined hiring processes to be used under certain circumstances.

== Overview ==
Most civilian positions in the [[federal government of the United States]] are part of the competitive service, where applicants must compete with other applicants in open competition under the merit system administered by the [[Office of Personnel Management]]. However, some positions are excluded from these provisions, and some agencies are composed entirely of excepted service positions. Agencies with excepted service positions may employ unique evaluation criteria, such as with research grade evaluation scientists, who are reviewed based on scientific output. Some agencies may use excepted service hiring authorities, such as Veterans Recruitment Appointment (VRA) or Schedule A (disability). Positions filled using these hiring authorities (and which are not always excepted service, such as attorneys) may remain in the excepted service or may convert to the competitive service after a set amount of time (usually two years).

A common feature of many of these agencies and positions is that they have national security and/or intelligence functions, such as the [[National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency]], [[National Reconnaissance Office]], [[Central Intelligence Agency]], the [[Department of State]], the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]], the [[Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency]], the [[National Security Agency]], the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]], [[U.S. Secret Service]], and the [[Naval Criminal Investigative Service|NCIS]]. [[Lawyer|Attorney]] positions, [[Presidential Management Fellows]], [[Presidential Innovation Fellows]], and [[United States Foreign Service|Foreign Service]] positions are examples of positions excepted across-the-board in all Federal agencies. Not all excepted service members serve in sensitive areas—for example, teachers and administrators at DOD schools, both in the U.S. and overseas, are also excepted. In addition, most employees in the legislative branch of the federal government are excepted service employees.

Until the Civil Service Due Process Amendments Act of 1990 (Pub. L. No. 101-376, 104 Stat. 461), employees in the excepted service who did not have veteran's preference did not have the right to appeal adverse actions to the [[United States Merit Systems Protection Board]] (MSPB). These amendments made it so that most employees in the excepted service, who had completed a two-year trial period (also called a probationary period) had appeal rights. The current statute (5 U.S.C. section 7511(b)) excludes certain positions, including anyone whose appointment was made by the advice and consent of the Senate, anyone appointed by the President, anyone whose position was determined to be of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character by the President or the Office of Personnel Management, members of the Foreign Service, employees of the Central Intelligence Agency or Government Accountability Office, and many employees of the Postal Service, Postal Regulatory Commission, Panama Canal Commission, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and intelligence components of the Department of Defense. These employees have no right to external appeals.

==Legal basis==

''From 5 [[United States Code|U.S.C.]] § 2103:''

<blockquote>
(a) For the purpose of this title, the '''excepted service''' consists of those [[civil service]] positions which are not in the [[competitive service]] or the [[Senior Executive Service]].

(b) As used in other Acts of the [[United States Congress]], “unclassified civil service” or “unclassified service” means the “excepted service”.
</blockquote>

== Hiring authorities ==
{| class="wikitable floatright"
|{{ #invoke:Chart | pie chart
| radius = 125					
|slice 1 	=	13.8	:	Schedule A
|slice 2 	=	1.3	:	Schedule B
|slice 3 	=	0.2	:	Schedule C
|slice 4 	=	2.5	:	Schedule D
|slice 5 	=	0.1	:	Executive
|slice 6 	=	82.1	:	Other
|units suffix = %
}}
|-
|Excepted service positions by hiring <br />authority in 2015<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2018-07-01|title=Excepted Service Hiring Authorities: Their Use and Effectiveness in the Executive Branch|url=https://chcoc.gov/sites/default/files/OPM%20Special%20Study%20%E2%80%93%20Excepted%20Service%20Hiring%20Authorities_0.pdf|access-date=2024-10-22|website=Chief Human Capital Officers Council|pages=1–2, 9, 20}}</ref>
|}

A hiring authority is the law, executive order, or regulation that allows an agency to hire a person into the federal civil service.<ref name=":02">{{Cite web|url=https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-16-521|title=Federal Hiring: OPM Needs to Improve Management and Oversight of Hiring Authorities|last=|first=|date=2016-09-01|website=U. S. Government Accountability Office|pages=0, 9–11|via=|volume=|issue=GAO-16-521}}</ref>

=== Office of Personnel Management schedules ===
Some service positions are classified by the [[United States Office of Personnel Management|Office of Personnel Management]] into lettered categories, although not all excepted service authorities fall into this classification:

* Schedule A appointments are "impracticable to examine".  They are used to appoint specific position types such as attorneys, chaplains, physicians; when there is a critical hiring need or the position is in a remote location; and to hire disabled applicants.  In addition to this, as of 2016, there were 122 agency-unique Schedule A hiring authorities.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Federal Hiring Flexibilities Resource Center|url=https://archive.opm.gov/Strategic_Management_of_Human_Capital/fhfrc/FLX05020.asp|access-date=2019-03-04|website=U.S. Office of Personnel Management}}</ref>
* Schedule B appointments are "not practicable to hold a competitive examination".  Schedule B appointees must meet the qualification standards for the job.  As of 2016, there were 36 agency-unique Schedule B hiring authorities.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />
* [[Schedule C appointment]]s are political appointments to confidential or policy-setting positions.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />
* Schedule D appointments are those where competitive service requirements "make impracticable the adequate recruitment of sufficient numbers".  These are known as the [[Pathways Programs]], which consist of the Internship Program, Recent Graduates Program, and [[Presidential Management Fellows Program]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />
*Schedule E appointments are [[administrative law judge]]s.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2018-07-10|title=Executive Order Excepting Administrative Law Judges from the Competitive Service|url=https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-excepting-administrative-law-judges-competitive-service/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210120202406/https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-excepting-administrative-law-judges-competitive-service/|archive-date=2021-01-20|access-date=2020-10-24|via=[[NARA|National Archives]]|work=[[whitehouse.gov]]|language=en-US}}</ref>
*[[Schedule Policy/Career appointment|Schedule Policy/Career appointments]], formerly known as Schedule F appointments apply to "confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating positions."<ref name=":4">{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2020-10-21|title=Executive Order on Creating Schedule F In The Excepted Service|url=https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-creating-schedule-f-excepted-service/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210130145607/https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-creating-schedule-f-excepted-service/|archive-date=2021-01-30|access-date=2020-10-24|via=[[NARA|National Archives]]|work=[[whitehouse.gov]]|language=en-US}}</ref>
Schedules A and B were created by the [[Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act|Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883]], Schedule C was created in 1956, and Schedule D was created in 2012.<ref name=":0" />  Schedule E was created in 2018.<ref name=":2" />  Schedule F was created in October 2020 and repealed in January 2021,<ref name=":4" /><ref>[https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/22/executive-order-protecting-the-federal-workforce/ www.whitehouse.gov]</ref> and was reinstated in January 2025.<ref name=":9">{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2025-01-21 |title=Restoring Accountability To Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce |url=https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-accountability-to-policy-influencing-positions-within-the-federal-workforce/ |access-date=2025-01-21 |website=The White House |language=en-US}}</ref>

=== Other hiring authorities ===
Several excepted service hiring authorities are not classified into the OPM schedules.  Some of the more prevalent include:

* [[Title 38 appointment]]s are for the [[United States Department of Veterans Affairs|Department of Veterans Affairs]] to hire certain medical occupations.<ref name=":02" />  The [[National Institutes of Health]] also uses Title 38 appointments for health care occupations that provide direct patient care services or services incident to it.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://policymanual.nih.gov/2300-550-1|title=NIH Policy Manual: Title 38 Premium Pay|last=|first=|date=|website=U.S. National Institutes of Health|access-date=2019-03-19}}</ref>
* A [[Title 42 appointment]] allows scientists and special consultants to be hired as part of the [[United States Public Health Service|Public Health Service]] or [[United States Environmental Protection Agency|Environmental Protection Agency]] under a streamlined process.<ref name=":03">{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2012-07-12 |title=Pay for Consultants and Scientists Appointed under Title 42 |url=https://www.gao.gov/products/B-323357 |access-date=2019-03-03 |website=U.S. Government Accountability Office |series=B-323357 |pages=2–5, 17, 20 |via=}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2012-07-12 |title=HHS and EPA Can Improve Practices Under Special Hiring Authorities |url=https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-692 |access-date=2019-03-03 |website=U. S. Government Accountability Office |series=GAO-12-692 |pages=0–6, 11, 25 |issue=}}</ref>
* A [[United States National Guard|National Guard]] technician hiring authority is used for the [[Army Reserve Technician Program]] and [[Air Reserve Technician Program]].<ref name=":02" />
* There is a [[Veterans Recruitment Appointment]] authority.<ref name=":02" />
* There are also agency-wide excepted service authorities, of which the largest are the [[Transportation Security Administration]] and [[Federal Aviation Administration]].<ref name=":02" />
*The [[Senior Biomedical Research Service]], formally the Silvio O. Conte Senior Biomedical Research and Biomedical Product Assessment Service, is for scientific and technical experts in biomedical research, clinical research evaluation, and biomedical product assessment.<ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2020-06-03|title=HHS Instruction 42-3: Senior Biomedical Research and Biomedical Product Assessment Service|url=https://www.hhs.gov/about/agencies/asa/ohr/hr-library/42-3-sbrbpas/index.html|access-date=2020-11-22|website=U.S. Department of Health and Human Services|language=en}}</ref>  It was created by the [[Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act of 1990]]<ref>{{USBill|101|HR|5241}}, {{USPL|101|509}}</ref><ref name=":5" /> and implemented in 1995, because the [[National Institutes of Health]] concluded that the Senior Executive Service was not ideally suited for their purposes, and a personnel system more similar to academia was needed.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web|last=Hooper|first=Celia|date=January–February 1995|title=Title 38, SBRS raise salary caps|url=https://nihsearch.cit.nih.gov/catalyst/back/95.01/title38.sbrs.html|access-date=2020-11-22|website=The NIH Catalyst}}</ref>  Initially there was a cap of 500 individuals in the Service,<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":6" /> but the [[21st Century Cures Act]] increased this to 2000 individuals in 2016.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web|last=Denigan-Macauley|first=Mary|date=2020-05-08|title=Biomedical Research: HHS Has Not Yet Used New Authorities to Improve Recruitment and Retention of Scientists|url=https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-20-531R|access-date=2020-11-22|website=U. S. Government Accountability Office|pages=|via=}}</ref>

==Principal excepted agencies==
The following are selected excepted service agencies:<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.usajobs.gov/Content/pdfs/excepted_service.pdf|title=Excepted Service Information & Employment Opportunities|last=|first=|date=2010-01-15|website=U.S. Office of Personnel Management|access-date=}}</ref>

*[[Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts]]
*[[National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency]] (NGA)
*[[National Reconnaissance Office]] (NRO)
*[[Central Intelligence Agency]] (CIA)
*[[Corporation for National and Community Service]]
*[[Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency]] (DCSA) 
*[[Defense Intelligence Agency]] (DIA)
*[[Federal Air Marshal Service]] (FAMS)
*[[Federal Aviation Administration]] (FAA)
*[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] (FBI)
*[[Federal Emergency Management Agency]] (FEMA)
*[[Federal Reserve Board]]
*[[Library of Congress]]
*[[National Nuclear Security Administration]] (NNSA)
*[[National Security Agency]] (NSA)
*[[Nuclear Regulatory Commission]] (NRC)
*[[Peace Corps]]
*[[Tennessee Valley Authority]] (TVA)
*[[United States Agency for International Development]] (USAID)
*[[United States Capitol Police]] (USCP)
*[[United States Congress]] - Personal Office Staff
*[[Transportation Security Administration]] (TSA)
*[[United States Postal Service]] (USPS)
*[[United States Secret Service]] (USSS)
*[[United States Election Assistance Commission]]
*[[U.S. Supreme Court, Personnel Office]]
*[[United States Patent and Trademark Office]] (USPTO)
*Department of Defense Cyber Excepted Service (CES)

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Civil service}}

[[Category:Civil service in the United States]]