High-Risk Series

In 1990, GAO began a special effort to identify federal programs at high risk for waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement. GAO issued a series of reports in December 1992 on the fundamental causes of the problems in the high-risk areas; it followed up on the status of these areas in February 1995. This, GAO's third series of high-risk reports, revisits these troubled government programs and designates five additional areas as high-risk (defense infrastructure, information security, the year 2000 problem, supplemental security income, and the 2000 decennial census), bringing to 25 the number of high-risk programs on GAO's list. The high-risk series includes an overview, a quick reference guide, and 12 individual reports. The high-risk series may be ordered as a full set, a two-volume package including the overview and the quick reference guide, or as 12 separate reports describing in detail these vulnerable government programs. GAO summarized the high-risk series in testimony before Congress (GAO/T-HR-97-22).

GAO found that: (1) despite DOD's past and current efforts to reform the acquisition system, wasteful practices still add billions of dollars to defense acquisition costs; (2) many new weapons systems cost more and do less than anticipated, and schedules are often delayed; (3) moreover, the need for some of these costly weapons, particularly since the collapse of the Soviet Union, is questionable; (4) DOD has perpetuated its history of establishing questionable requirements for weapon systems, projecting unrealistic cost, schedule, and performance estimates, and beginning production before adequate testing has been completed; (5) DOD's leadership has emphasized its commitment to reforming its weapon system acquisition processes; (6) DOD's goal is to become the world's smartest buyer, continuously reinventing and improving the acquisition process while taking maximum advantage of emerging technologies that enable business process reengineering; (7) in the area of "what to buy", DOD is focusing its efforts on greater reliance on commercial products and processes, and more timely infusion of new technology into new or existing systems; (8) in the area of "how to buy", DOD's efforts have been directed at, among other things, increasing teamwork and cooperation, encouraging risk management rather than risk avoidance, reducing reporting requirements, and reducing nonvalue-added layers of review and oversight; (9) the ultimate effectiveness of DOD's current initiatives to reduce the costs and improve the outcomes of its acquisition processes cannot yet be fully assessed because they are in various stages of implementation; (10) DOD is pursuing a number of positive initiatives that should, over time, improve the cost-effectiveness of its acquisition processes and is reporting some success in terms of cost savings or avoidance and other benefits; (11) while these initiatives are commendable, DOD continues to generate and support acquisitions of new weapon systems that will not satisfy the most critical weapon requirements at minimal cost, and commit more procurement funds to programs than can reasonably be expected to be available in future defense budgets; (12) the fundamental reforms needed to correct these problems have not yet been formulated, much less instituted, by DOD and the Congress; and (13) however, the likelihood of continuing fiscal constraints and reduced national security threats should provide additional incentive for real progress in changing the structure and dominant culture of DOD's system acquisition processes.