Summary: On January 17, 2007, GAO testified before Congress on the Department of Defense's (DOD) management of its acquisition of services. GAO made several key points during the hearing. First, DOD's long-standing problems with contract management have become more prominent as DOD's reliance on contractors to provide services continues to grow. Second, DOD lacks sound contracting practices when acquiring services. Third, DOD's acquisition workforce has been downsized without sufficient attention to requisite skills and competencies. Fourth, DOD's acquisitions have resulted in outcomes that have cost the department valuable resources. And, finally, while DOD is taking some steps to address these problems, it does not know how well its services acquisition processes are working, which part of its mission can best be met through buying services, and whether it is obtaining the services it needs while protecting DOD's and the taxpayer's interests. Within this context, members of Congress requested that GAO provide additional comments on DOD's efforts regarding the following topics: interagency contracting, acquisition of services, acquisition reform, and the acquisition workforce.
Congress's questions and our answers are provided in appendix I. The responses are generally based on work associated with previously issued GAO products, which were conducted in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Because the responses are based on prior work, we did not obtain comments from DOD.
