Oversight Of Dods Management Of Inside Information In The Acquisition Process

Numerous persistent problems have resulted in reduced effectiveness and have exposed DOD to unnecessary risks when acquiring services. The growth in obligations on service contracts from $85.1 billion in fiscal year 1996 to more than $151 billion in fiscal year 2006 reflects a growing reliance on contractors to provide a range of mission-critical services. At the same time, DOD's civilian workforce was downsized without sufficient attention to requisite skills and competencies. Within this environment, our work, as well as that of some agency Inspectors General, have identified numerous instances of weak business practices poorly defined requirements, inadequate competition, insufficient guidance and leadership, inadequate monitoring of contractor performance, and inappropriate uses of other agencies contracts and contracting services. Collectively, these problems expose DOD to unnecessary risk, complicate efforts to hold DOD and contractors accountable for poor acquisition outcomes, and increase the potential for fraud, waste, or abuse of taxpayer dollars. DOD's structure and processes for managing services do not position the department to make service acquisitions a managed outcome. DOD has taken some actions to improve its management of services, including developing a competency model for its contracting workforce; issuing policies and guidance to improve DOD s management of contractors supporting deployed forces and its use of interagency contracts; and developing an integrated assessment of how best to acquire services. DOD leadership will be critical for translating this assessment and other actions into effective frontline practices. At this point, however, DOD does not know how well its services acquisition processes are working and whether it is obtaining the services it needs while protecting DOD's and the taxpayer's interests.

In the military, information technology (IT) has enabled profound advances in weapons systems and the management and operation of the defense enterprise. A significant portion of the Department of Defense (DOD) budget is spent on capabilities acquired as commercial IT commodities, developmental IT systems that support a broad range of warfighting and functional applications, and IT components embedded in weapons systems. The ability of the DOD and its industrial partners to harness and apply IT for warfighting, command and control and communications, logistics, and transportation has contributed enormously to fielding the world's best defense force. However, despite the DOD's decades of success in leveraging IT across the defense enterprise, the acquisition of IT systems continues to be burdened with serious problems. To address these issues, the National Research Council assembled a group of IT systems acquisition and T&E experts, commercial software developers, software engineers, computer scientists and other academic researchers. The group evaluated applicable legislative requirements, examined the processes and capabilities of the commercial IT sector, analyzed DOD's concepts for systems engineering and testing in virtual environments, and examined the DOD acquisition environment. The present volume summarizes this analysis and also includes recommendations on how to improve the acquisition, systems engineering, and T&E processes to achieve the DOD's network-centric goals.

Recent events in the Air Force surrounding the illegal actions of former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Darleen Druyun highlighted the need to review the management and oversight structure of acquisition activities in the Department of Defense (DoD). DoD, through the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics USD(AT AND L), established the Defense Science Board (DSB) Task Force on Management Oversight of Acquisition Organizations to examine its acquisition structures and processes; survey and assess best practices; and recommend changes to improve checks and balances to better ensure acquisition integrity. The Task Force was also asked to consider whether: (1) structural problems exist that place too much decision authority in one individual or at a level without adequate oversight; and (2) a simplified acquisition structure could improve both efficiency and oversight. The Task Force was co-chaired by two members of the Defense Science Board. Task Force members and key contributors included former Defense Department and other Federal Government officials, as well as members of industry and academia. During the course of its work, the Task Force reviewed a wide array of written materials and heard from experts in the fields of acquisition, procurement, ethics and integrity, human resources, leadership, organization, oversight, and best practices.