Service Acquisitions: DODs Report to Congress Identifies Steps Taken to Improve Management, But Does Not Address Some Key Planning Issues

The Department of Defense (DOD) relies on contractors to provide a wide array of services, including support for management, information technology, and weapon systems. In fiscal year 2019, DOD obligated about $190 billion on service acquisitions, which accounted for nearly half of DOD's total contract obligations. Our past work, however, has identified issues with DOD's management of service acquisitions, including limited visibility into DOD's future spending plans, and narrowly-scoped requirements reviews focused on individual contracts rather than a more holistic approach that comprehensively considers service requirements within and across portfolios. Since 2011, we have made 29 recommendations for improvement, 22 of which DOD has acted on to date, but seven of which remain unimplemented. In 1992, we added DOD contracting to our High-Risk List, which we update every two years to identify programs and operations that are 'high risk' due to their vulnerabilities to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement, or that need transformation. Since 2001, we have highlighted service acquisitions as an issue for oversight within the DOD Contract Management area.