Acquisition Workforce
DOD's Efforts to Rebuild Capacity Have Shown Some Progress Gao ID: GAO-12-232T November 16, 2011The Department of Defense (DOD) is the government's largest buying entity and has recognized that rebuilding the acquisition workforce is a strategic priority. The federal government's current budget and long-term fiscal pressures underscore the importance of a capable and well-functioning workforce. GAO and others have long recognized that the size and capabilities of the workforce across the government warrant the attention of the Congress. This statement discusses (1) DOD's progress in addressing challenges faced in rebuilding the capacity of the acquisition workforce, and (2) insights into the efforts by the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) to rebuild its contract oversight capacity. This statement is drawn from our broad body of work on DOD contract management and acquisition workforce as well as a report issued earlier this month on DCMA's efforts to rebuild capacity. We also obtained updated information from DOD with regard to its acquisition workforce competency assessments and workforce hiring.
DOD has made some progress in rebuilding the capacity of the acquisition workforce. For example, DOD reported that it hired about 5,900 civilians into the acquisition workforce in fiscal year 2010 using the Defense Acquisition Development Workforce Fund or as a result of decisions to convert functions previously performed by a contractor to performance by government personnel. DOD's plans for further growing the acquisition workforce remain uncertain because of budget issues. Building workforce skills and expertise is just as important, however, as increasing the size of the acquisition workforce. DOD also made progress in completing competency assessments, which identify the current skills and capabilities of the workforce and help identify areas that needed further management attention. DOD officials reported that DOD has completed three assessments, including contracting, life cycle logistics, and program management, and is drafting final reports for another six assessments. One area where DOD still faces challenges is determining the effectiveness of its training in improving acquisition outcomes. GAO recommended in 2010 that if DOD is to fully assess performance improvements, it needs to go beyond measuring the size of the workforce. DOD did not concur with the recommendation, stating that it believed existing metrics were sufficient to assess the impact of its training efforts on acquisition outcomes. GAO continues to believe DOD needs to develop additional metrics. Further, to help improve acquisition outcomes, GAO reported that DOD needed to assess the skills and competencies of and training provided to those people who have a role in acquisition but who are outside what DOD has formally defined as the acquisition workforce. GAO recommended that DOD establish criteria for identifying these personnel, assess the critical skills needed to perform their role in the acquisition process, and designate an organization that has the responsibility to track DOD's progress in identifying, developing, and overseeing personnel outside the defined acquisition workforce. DOD concurred with these recommendations. The challenges DCMA is experiencing in rebuilding its capacity are illustrative of those faced by DOD. DCMA performs a critical role in helping to manage and oversee contractor performance. GAO's November 2011 report found that DCMA is attempting to rebuild its workforce, making increased use of the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Fund. For example, in fiscal year 2011, DCMA reported it hired 1,221 new employees under this authority, a substantial increase from 166 hired in fiscal year 2009. GAO also noted that by the late 1990s, DCMA had lost the majority of its contract cost/price analysts, which, according to DCMA, meant many of its pricing-related contract administration responsibilities, such as negotiating forward-pricing rate agreements and establishing final indirect cost rates and billing rates, were no longer performed to the same level of discipline and consistency as in prior years. As a result, DCMA reported that DOD's acquisitions were subjected to unacceptable levels of cost risks. Over the last 2 years, DCMA reports it has hired 279 new contract cost/price analysts and cost monitors (bringing the agency's total number to about 400), extensively using the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Fund to do so. GAO is not making any new recommendations in this statement. GAO has previously made recommendations to DOD to help address DOD's workforce challenges. DOD generally agreed with most of the recommendations and has efforts under way to implement them.
GAO-12-232T, Acquisition Workforce: DOD's Efforts to Rebuild Capacity Have Shown Some Progress
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United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
Testimony:
Before the Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,
Intergovernmental Relations and Procurement Reform, Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives:
For Release on Delivery:
Expected at 1:30 p.m. EST:
Wednesday, November 16, 2011:
Acquisition Workforce:
DOD's Efforts to Rebuild Capacity Have Shown Some Progress:
Statement of John P. Hutton, Director:
Acquisition and Sourcing Management:
GAO-12-232T:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-12-232T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on
Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and
Procurement Reform, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
House of Representatives.
Why GAO Did This Study:
The Department of Defense (DOD) is the government‘s largest buying
entity and has recognized that rebuilding the acquisition workforce is
a strategic priority. The federal government‘s current budget and long-
term fiscal pressures underscore the importance of a capable and well-
functioning workforce. GAO and others have long recognized that the
size and capabilities of the workforce across the government warrant
the attention of the Congress.
This statement discusses (1) DOD‘s progress in addressing challenges
faced in rebuilding the capacity of the acquisition workforce, and (2)
insights into the efforts by the Defense Contract Management Agency
(DCMA) to rebuild its contract oversight capacity. This statement is
drawn from our broad body of work on DOD contract management and
acquisition workforce as well as a report issued earlier this month on
DCMA‘s efforts to rebuild capacity. We also obtained updated
information from DOD with regard to its acquisition workforce
competency assessments and workforce hiring.
What GAO Found:
DOD has made some progress in rebuilding the capacity of the
acquisition workforce. For example, DOD reported that it hired about
5,900 civilians into the acquisition workforce in fiscal year 2010
using the Defense Acquisition Development Workforce Fund or as a
result of decisions to convert functions previously performed by a
contractor to performance by government personnel. DOD‘s plans for
further growing the acquisition workforce remain uncertain because of
budget issues. Building workforce skills and expertise is just as
important, however, as increasing the size of the acquisition
workforce. DOD also made progress in completing competency
assessments, which identify the current skills and capabilities of the
workforce and help identify areas that needed further management
attention. DOD officials reported that DOD has completed three
assessments, including contracting, life cycle logistics, and program
management, and is drafting final reports for another six assessments.
One area where DOD still faces challenges is determining the
effectiveness of its training in improving acquisition outcomes. GAO
recommended in 2010 that if DOD is to fully assess performance
improvements, it needs to go beyond measuring the size of the
workforce. DOD did not concur with the recommendation, stating that it
believed existing metrics were sufficient to assess the impact of its
training efforts on acquisition outcomes. GAO continues to believe DOD
needs to develop additional metrics. Further, to help improve
acquisition outcomes, GAO reported that DOD needed to assess the
skills and competencies of and training provided to those people who
have a role in acquisition but who are outside what DOD has formally
defined as the acquisition workforce. GAO recommended that DOD
establish criteria for identifying these personnel, assess the
critical skills needed to perform their role in the acquisition
process, and designate an organization that has the responsibility to
track DOD‘s progress in identifying, developing, and overseeing
personnel outside the defined acquisition workforce. DOD concurred
with these recommendations.
The challenges DCMA is experiencing in rebuilding its capacity are
illustrative of those faced by DOD. DCMA performs a critical role in
helping to manage and oversee contractor performance. GAO‘s November
2011 report found that DCMA is attempting to rebuild its workforce,
making increased use of the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development
Fund. For example, in fiscal year 2011, DCMA reported it hired 1,221
new employees under this authority, a substantial increase from 166
hired in fiscal year 2009. GAO also noted that by the late 1990s, DCMA
had lost the majority of its contract cost/price analysts, which,
according to DCMA, meant many of its pricing-related contract
administration responsibilities, such as negotiating forward-pricing
rate agreements and establishing final indirect cost rates and billing
rates, were no longer performed to the same level of discipline and
consistency as in prior years. As a result, DCMA reported that DOD‘s
acquisitions were subjected to unacceptable levels of cost risks. Over
the last 2 years, DCMA reports it has hired 279 new contract
cost/price analysts and cost monitors (bringing the agency‘s total
number to about 400), extensively using the Defense Acquisition
Workforce Development Fund to do so.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO is not making any new recommendations in this statement. GAO has
previously made recommendations to DOD to help address DOD‘s workforce
challenges. DOD generally agreed with most of the recommendations and
has efforts under way to implement them.
View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-232T]. For more
information, contact John Hutton at (202) 512-4841 or huttonj@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Chairman Lankford, Ranking Member Connolly, and Members of the
Subcommittee:
I am pleased to be here today to discuss our recent work on
acquisition workforce issues. GAO and others have long recognized that
the size and capabilities of the workforce across the government
warrant the attention of the Congress. The federal government's
current budget and long-term fiscal pressures underscore the
importance of a capable and well-functioning workforce.
Today I would like to focus in particular on the government's largest
buying entity and discuss our issued work on the challenges facing the
Department of Defense's (DOD) acquisition workforce.[Footnote 1] In
our February 2011 high-risk report, we noted that among the actions
DOD needed to take to improve outcomes on the hundreds of billions of
dollars spent annually on goods and services was to ensure that its
acquisition workforce was adequately sized, trained, and equipped to
meet the department's needs.[Footnote 2] Our work has found that a
lack of an adequate number of trained acquisition and contract
oversight personnel contributed to unmet expectations and has placed
DOD, at times, at risk of potentially paying more than necessary.
Likewise, DOD has recognized that rebuilding its acquisition workforce
is a strategic priority. According to the Office of the Under
Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics
(USD/AT&L), to successfully accomplish the acquisition mission and
ensure the best value for the expenditure of public resources, DOD
will place greater emphasis on having a high-quality workforce with
the right competencies and skill sets. To do so, DOD issued an
acquisition workforce plan in April 2010 that identified planned
workforce growth in support of the Secretary of Defense's strategy to
resize and rebalance the acquisition workforce.
My statement today will address DOD acquisition workforce issues from
two perspectives. First, I will provide an overview of DOD's progress
in addressing challenges faced in rebuilding the capacity of the
acquisition workforce. I will then provide specific insights into the
efforts of the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) to rebuild
its contract oversight capacity. This statement today is drawn from
our broad body of work on DOD contract management and acquisition
workforce, including work reflected in our February 2011 high-risk
update as well as our October 2010 and September 2011 acquisition
workforce reports.[Footnote 3] Additionally, we relied on our November
2011 report that assessed the progress and challenges facing DCMA.
[Footnote 4] We also obtained updated information from DOD with regard
to its acquisition workforce competency assessments and workforce
hiring data. This work was prepared in accordance with generally
accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that
we plan and perform the audits to obtain sufficient, appropriate
evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the
evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives.
DOD's Progress in Addressing Challenges in Rebuilding the Capacity of
the Acquisition Workforce:
DOD has made some progress in rebuilding the capacity of the civilian
acquisition workforce and in completing competency assessments, which
identify the current skills and capabilities of the workforce and help
identify areas that needed further management attention. Included
among the workforce issues facing DOD are (1) determining the right
size of the acquisition workforce, (2) updating acquisition training
based on ongoing competency assessments and measuring the effect of
training on acquisition outcomes, and (3) identifying personnel
outside the acquisition workforce who have a role in acquisition.
Steps Taken to Increase the Size of the Acquisition Workforce:
In April 2009, the Secretary of Defense announced his intent to
increase the size of the acquisition workforce, in part, to (1) help
address concerns that DOD had become too reliant on contractors to
support core functions and (2) rebuild the capacity and skill sets
that had been eroded in the years that followed the downsizing of the
workforce in the 1990s. DOD's April 2010 acquisition workforce
strategic plan identified an objective of increasing the civilian
acquisition workforce, which totaled about 118,000 civilians as of
September 2009, by 20,000 personnel by fiscal year 2015. This growth
would be accomplished both through the hiring of new personnel using
funding provided through the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development
Fund[Footnote 5] as well as through the "insourcing"--or conversion to
government performance--of functions that were being performed by
contractor personnel. Data provided by the USD/AT&L indicate that DOD
hired about 5,900 individuals using the Defense Acquisition Workforce
Defense Fund as well as through insourcing in fiscal year 2010.
DOD officials also noted that a combination of other factors,
including hiring by the military departments (excluding those hired
using the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Fund or that were
the result of an insourcing decision), movement within DOD from one
career field to another, or administrative changes, such as
reclassifying existing positions as being within the acquisition
workforce, increased the total reported number of civilians within the
acquisition workforce by about 8,500. Overall, DOD officials reported
that the civilian acquisition workforce was about 133,000 at the end
of fiscal year 2010.
The department's plans for growing the acquisition workforce remain
uncertain. In August 2010, the Secretary of Defense announced that the
insourcing initiative was being halted, though DOD would continue to
insource positions on a case-by-case basis. Further, because of
anticipated future budget constraints, the Secretary of Defense
announced in March 2011 a hiring freeze for DOD's overall civilian
workforce, but he indicated that the initiatives using the Defense
Acquisition Workforce Development Fund would continue. DOD had planned
to issue an updated strategic workforce plan for the acquisition
workforce earlier this year but has not yet done so, in part, because
of the uncertainty regarding future budgets. DOD officials indicated
that the plan may not be released until April 2012. At this time, we
do not know whether DOD's updated plan will include information on the
funding needed to achieve its acquisition workforce objectives.
DOD Efforts to Identify Competencies and Update Acquisition Workforce
Training:
Just as important as increasing the size of the acquisition workforce
is building workforce skills and expertise. Our work has shown that
federal agencies need to determine the occupations, skills, and
competencies critical to achieving their missions and goals, as well
as to identify any gaps between their current workforce and the
workforce they will need in the future.[Footnote 6] By taking these
steps, agencies would be in a better position to adjust to changes in
technology, budget constraints, and other factors that alter the
environment in which they operate. The DOD acquisition workforce is no
exception.
The Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Strategy outlines a
competency assessment strategy for the acquisition workforce as a
means to assess workforce capability using updated and validated
enterprise-wide models, data and information. In September 2010 we
reported DOD had completed only one of its planned 13 assessments.
[Footnote 7] Over the past year, however, DOD has reported making
progress in completing some of the remaining 12 assessments. For
example, according to the Deputy Director of AT&L human capital
initiatives, DOD has completed two additional competency assessments.
Thus, competency assessments have now been completed in the areas of
contracting, life-cycle logistics, and program management. DOD is
drafting the final report for another six competency assessments.
DOD officials have reported that they have used these competency
assessments, in part, to help revise the training curriculum for its
contracting career field. DOD's contracting competency assessment
found that there was inconsistency in fundamental contracting skills
and in the source selection process and that more advanced training on
pricing was needed. In March 2011, the Office of Defense Procurement
and Acquisition Policy announced plans to revise the training
standards for its contracting career field, effective October 1, 2011.
According to DOD, the changes in the curriculum incorporated more
emphasis on pricing, services contracting, and competition, among
other things, and were based on the competency assessments and
discussions with senior procurement executives and contracting
leaders. Similarly, in August 2011 DOD noted plans to make changes in
its purchasing and industrial/contract property management curricula.
One area where DOD still faces challenges is determining the
effectiveness of its training in improving acquisition outcomes. We
reported in 2010 that if DOD is to fully assess performance
improvements, it needs to go beyond measuring the size of the
workforce.[Footnote 8] We recommended that DOD establish milestones
for the development of metrics to measure how acquisition
certification training improves the proficiency and capability of the
acquisition workforce, in order to demonstrate and track how training
efforts contribute to improved acquisition workforce performance. DOD
did not concur with the recommendation stating that it believed
existing metrics were sufficient to assess the effect of its training
efforts on acquisition outcomes. We continue to believe DOD needs to
develop additional metrics.
DOD Needs to Look Beyond the Formally Defined Acquisition Workforce:
To help improve acquisition outcomes, our September 2011 report noted
that DOD needed to assess the skills and competencies of and training
provided to those people outside what DOD has defined as the
acquisition workforce.[Footnote 9] These people include those who may
set requirements or serve as the contracting officer's representatives
to help manage and oversee contractor performance--functions that are
key to acquisition outcomes. GAO found that personnel with acquisition-
related responsibilities represented more than half of the 430
personnel involved with 29 services acquisition contracts reviewed. In
this report, we also noted that several organizations have been
tracking and managing the acquisition workforce, but no DOD
organization has (1) systematically identified personnel outside of
what has been defined as the acquisition workforce and the related
competencies, or (2) been given responsibility for the identification,
development and oversight of this group. DOD is not required to
identify personnel outside the acquisition workforce and has not
established a process to do so. As DOD officials noted, identifying
this population is challenging, in part because it is a transient one
dispersed across many DOD organizations. Additionally, these people
come from a variety of career fields and are often involved in
acquisitions as a secondary duty. DOD has taken action to identify
part of this population--such as requirements personnel for major
weapon systems--but has not done this for all personnel with
acquisition-related responsibilities outside the acquisition
workforce. We also found that DOD has limited information to gauge the
current and future demand for training this population or the
effectiveness of the current training that is available. We
recommended that DOD establish criteria for identifying these
personnel, assess the critical skills needed to perform their roles in
the acquisition process, and designate an organization that has the
responsibility to track DOD's progress in identifying, developing, and
overseeing personnel outside the defined acquisition workforce. DOD
concurred with the recommendations.
Rebuilding DCMA's Capacity:
The challenges DCMA is experiencing in rebuilding its capacity is
illustrative of those faced by DOD. DCMA performs a critical role in
helping to manage and oversee contractor performance. Specifically, it
has responsibilities for providing contract administration services
for DOD's buying activities and working directly with defense
contractors to help ensure that goods and services are delivered on
time, at projected cost, and meet performance requirements. In
addition, as a designated combat support agency, DCMA is tasked with
providing contract administration and support to combatant commanders
during contingency operations. The preponderance of DCMA's workforce
is included in the defined acquisition workforce.
In November 2011, we reported on how DCMA is positioning itself to
meet its missions.[Footnote 10] We noted that DCMA has undergone an
evolution to become the agency it is today. For example, DCMA's
workforce decreased from an estimate of about 24,000 in 1990 to a low
of about 9,300 in 2008. While senior DCMA officials said the
workforce's downsizing made sense for much of the 1990s, because there
were efficiencies to be gained and its workload was generally
decreasing, this changed in the early 2000s, when DCMA's workload
started to increase, but its workforce numbers continued to
decline.[Footnote 11] As the workforce declined, however, the agency
experienced significant erosion of expertise, such that it could not
fulfill all of its oversight functions.
Since 2008, DCMA has been rebuilding its workforce, and to do so, has
made increasing use of the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development
Fund. For example, in fiscal year 2011, DCMA reported it hired 1,221
new employees under this authority, a substantial increase from 166
hired in fiscal year 2009. These new employees include 3-year interns
as well as journeymen, described by DCMA officials as individuals with
extensive experience in a certain business area. Some contract
management office leaders told us, however, they were not sure that
they would have enough operations and maintenance-funded positions
available to be able to retain the journeymen and interns they had
originally hired using the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development
Fund. DCMA leadership noted that the agency is requesting increased
operations and maintenance funding to convert these positions in the
future.
As noted earlier, building workforce skills and expertise is just as
important as increasing the size of the acquisition workforce. Our
November 2011 report noted that by the late 1990s, DCMA had lost the
majority of its contract cost/price analysts, which, according to
DCMA, meant many of its pricing-related contract administration
responsibilities, such as negotiating forward pricing rate agreements
and establishing final indirect cost rates and billing rates, were no
longer performed to the same level of discipline and consistency as in
prior years. As a result, DCMA reported that DOD's acquisitions were
subjected to unacceptable levels of cost risks. In one recent example,
a DCMA official told us about a case where an administrative
contracting officer, lacking support from contract cost/price analysts
had, for simplicity, incorrectly blended a contractor's overhead rates
rather than deriving separate rates for different areas (e.g., general
and administrative, and manufacturing).
Over the last 2 years, DCMA reports it has hired 279 new contract
cost/price analysts and cost monitors (bringing the agency's total
number to about 400), extensively using the Defense Acquisition
Workforce Development Fund to do so. Further, in 2009, DCMA created
the Cost and Pricing Center, with a mission of developing and
sustaining the agency's expertise in pricing. DCMA officials said the
center has helped to hire contract cost/price analysts for its
contract management offices. It also develops and conducts training
for the growing DCMA contract cost/price analyst workforce.
DCMA also identified ongoing concerns with its ability to effectively
carry out its quality assurance responsibilities because of workforce
size and capability shortfalls, increasing the risk to the warfighter
and the taxpayers.[Footnote 12] For example, DCMA reported an increase
in customer complaints in the form of reported quality deficiencies in
products. One action DCMA reports it is taking to address the issues
related to its quality assurance capabilities is defining
certification training for its quality assurance personnel. DCMA also
reports it is moving toward standardizing position descriptions as a
way to establish consistent expectations for its quality assurance
workforce. DCMA has emphasized increasing the number of quality
assurance personnel and estimates this will continue through 2016.
Even with DCMA's recent efforts to rebuild workforce capacity, the
large percentage of retirement-eligible employees presents challenges.
Over half of DCMA's workforce is retirement eligible or qualified for
early retirement incentives. For example, as of the end of fiscal year
2010, about 24 percent of the DCMA workforce was eligible to retire,
and an additional 28 percent qualified for early retirement
incentives. The large number of retirement-eligible employees
continues to make DCMA vulnerable to the loss of valuable technical
expertise and organizational knowledge. In part, DCMA plans to
mitigate this risk through aggressive recruiting and knowledge
management activities, such as bringing back retired annuitants to
help raise the skill levels of the newer employees.
Concluding Observations:
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, DOD has focused much needed attention to
rebuild its acquisition workforce and has made some progress in terms
of growing the workforce, identifying the skills and competencies it
needs, and using such information to help update its training
curriculum. More needs to be done, however, especially for those
individuals who do not fit within the traditional definition of DOD's
acquisition workforce. The fiscal and budget challenges facing this
nation and DOD underscore the need for DOD to strategically manage its
workforce to ensure that they have the right skills, capabilities, and
training to effectively acquire and manage the billions of dollars DOD
spends on goods and services each year. These same fiscal and budget
pressures may present DOD with additional challenges in meeting its
acquisition workforce goals. Whether DOD achieves all of its
previously planned growth and related workforce improvement
initiatives remains uncertain, but what is certain is the department
can ill-afford not to succeed in preparing its workforce to meet its
future needs.
Chairman Lankford, Ranking Member Connolly, and members of the
Subcommittee, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy
to respond to any questions you may have at this time.
Contacts and Acknowledgment:
For further information about this statement, please contact me at
(202) 512-4841 or huttonj@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of
Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last
page of this statement. Individuals who made key contributions to this
statement include Penny Berrier, Assistant Director; Timothy DiNapoli;
Laura Holliday; Victoria Klepacz; John Krump; and Janet McKelvey.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] The Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act recognized
acquisition as a multidisciplinary career field for DOD comprised of
11 functional areas (Pub. L. No. 101-510, § 1202(a) (1990) (codified,
as amended, at 10 U.S.C. §1721 (a), (b)). The 11 functional areas are--
program management; systems planning research, development,
engineering, and testing; procurement, including contracting;
industrial property management; logistics; quality control and
assurance; manufacturing and production; business, cost estimating and
financial management, and auditing; education, training, and career
development; construction; and joint development and production with
other government agencies and foreign countries. Since the act was
passed, DOD has expanded the original list of 11 functional areas to a
total of 16 career fields/paths.
[2] GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-278] (Washington, D.C.: February
2011).
[3] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-278]; GAO, Defense
Acquisition Workforce: DOD's Training Program Demonstrates Many
Attributes of Effectiveness, but Improvement Is Needed, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-22] (Washington D.C.: Oct. 28,
2010); and GAO, Defense Acquisition Workforce: Better Identification,
Development, and Oversight Needed for Personnel Involved in Acquiring
Services, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-892]
(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 28, 2011).
[4] GAO, Defense Contract Management Agency: Amid Ongoing Efforts to
Rebuild Capacity, Several Factors Present Challenges in Meeting its
Missions, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-83]
(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 3, 2011).
[5] The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008
established the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Fund to
provide additional funds for the recruitment, training, and retention
of acquisition personnel of the Department of Defense. Pub. L. No. 110-
181 § 852; codified in 10 U.S.C. § 1705.
[6] GAO, Workforce Planning: Interior, EPA, and the Forest Service
Should Strengthen Linkages to Their Strategic Plans and Improve
Evaluation, GAO-10-413 (Washington D.C.: Mar. 31, 2010); [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-278]; GAO, Human Capital: Further
Actions Needed to Enhance DOD's Civilian Strategic Workforce Plan, GAO-
10-814R (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 27, 2010); and GAO, Human Capital: A
Guide for Assessing Strategic Training and Development Efforts in the
Federal Government, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-546G] (Washington, D.C.; Mar. 2004).
[7] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-814R].
[8] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-22].
[9] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-892].
[10] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-83].
[11] DCMA measures its workload in terms of obligations the government
has incurred, but not yet paid, also known as unliquidated obligations.
[12] Relatedly, in 2008, we found that DOD's quality specialists,
including those at DCMA, had to scale back the amount of oversight
they provided as a result of downsizing. GAO, Best Practices:
Increased Focus on Requirements and Oversight Needed to Improve DOD's
Acquisition Environment and Weapon System Quality, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-294] (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 1,
2008).
[End of section]
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