Summary: In late 1995, the Defense Department (DOD) began encouraging the services and defense agencies to conduct competition between the public and private sectors to determine who would be responsible for performing some functions now being provided in-house. These competitions were to be done in accordance with Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76, which provides guidance for the competitions, and were expected to yield significant savings that could be used to fund other priority needs, such as modernization. DOD components are now beginning a significant number of these public-private competitions using the A-76 process. This report (1) determines the number of sourcing competitions completed between October 1995 and March 1998 and whether the competitions had been done in accordance with applicable procedures; (2) compares characteristics, such as outcomes of recent competitions, with previous competitions in terms of winners of the competitions, time required to complete the competitions, savings produced, and other relevant metrics: and (3) identified the extent of any problems in implementing the results of the competitions, and plans for government monitoring of contracts awarded as a result of outsourcing.
