The department commands several prolific subordinate city-level units including the state security bureaus (SSB) of the cities of Jinan and Qingdao.

Shandong has long maintained a substantial state security footprint dating to the founding of the People's Republic.

The province was regarded as a 'stronghold' for Kang Sheng, the Qingdao-born Politburo Standing Committee member and spymaster who led China's national intelligence apparatus, then called the Social Affairs Department (SAD), during the 1940s and again at the height of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

During that time, many cadres purged from factional infighting at the Red Guards headquarters in Beijing were sent down to Shandong so he could exercise tight control over them.

The Shandong SSD praised the 2000 reforms for having "promoted operations, … rationalized organizational structure, and regularized activity.