Summary: In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) use of the Warner Amendment, which exempted the procurement of certain categories of computer resources from the provisions of the Brooks Act, to determine: (1) the number of procurements and the extent of competition achieved under the amendment; and (2) whether DOD was taking less time to procure automatic data processing (ADP) resources under the amendment.
GAO found that: (1) DOD has conducted 141 procurements under the amendment since its enactment in 1981; and (2) there was no significant difference between Warner Amendment and Brooks Act procurements in the aggregate percentage of competitive and noncompetitive acquisitions, procedures followed, and total time needed to complete procurements. GAO believes that, since the amendment's implementation has not reduced acquisition time for ADP procurement for critical military missions, the use of acquisition time does not provide a basis for justifying extension of the amendment to exempt all DOD ADP procurements from the Brooks Act requirements.
