Defense Acquisitions: Further Action Needed to Better Implement Requirements for Conducting Inventory of Service Contract Activities

The Department of Defense DOD relies on contractors to perform myriad functions, which can offer benefits and flexibility for DOD. GAOs work has shown that reliance on contractors to support core missions, however, can place the government at risk of transferring government responsibilities to contractors. In April 2009, the Secretary of Defense announced his intent to reduce the departments reliance on contractors. In 2008, Congress required DOD to compile and review an annual inventory of the number of contractor employees working under service contracts and the functions and activities they performed. The fiscal year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act directed GAO to report annually on these inventories. GAO assessed 1 the approaches used to compile the fiscal year 2009 inventories and how the approaches have changed, and 2 how the inventories have been reviewed and used to inform workforce decisions. GAO reviewed guidance compared the approaches used to develop the fiscal year 2008 and 2009 inventories and interviewed acquisition and manpower officials from DOD, the military departments, and selected defense components. What GAO Recommends GAO recommends DOD develop and issue a plan of action to collect manpower data and, in the interim, improve its estimating approach. DOD concurred with the recommendations.