Defense Logistics Agency Inspector General Inspections Should Change From a Compliance to a Systems Approach

A review was made of the inspector general operations in the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). The DLA has no audit capability of its own and receives only limited audit coverage from the Defense Audit Service. This lack of audit coverage increases the need for a strong inspection system. Inspection reports provide some valuable information; however, the majority of them are compliance oriented and contain many minor findings.

Inspections can be improved by directing them more toward identifying significant systems problems. Duplication between the Inspector General, the Defense Audit Service, and other review groups is not a problem. However, the Inspector General does not have an adequate feedback system for determining the Service's responsiveness to audit requests submitted by the Inspector General. The Defense Logistics Agency inspection system is totally centralized with all inspection personnel reporting to the Inspector General. Temporary inspectors represent less than 2 percent of the total inspection staff-days charged. Using more temporaries could allow for more frequent inspection coverage and provide other advantages. The Department of Defense has implemented a new policy for releasing Inspector General reports and records to GAO, and the new method has proven to be satisfactory.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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