Purchasing power problems

By Dorothy Ramienski
Internet Editor
FederalNewsRadio

The topic of acquisition and how it’s managed within federal agencies is often top of mind for many feds, and it can sometimes be a sticky one.

One of the issues is, does the government have the inherent capacity in these various programs to manage large investments? In some cases, they get contractor support for that and that’s fine if it meets immediate needs, but in those situations, I think you still need to have capacity on the government’s part to manage those contracts.

On Thursday’s Daily Debrief, host Amy Morris spoke with John Hutton, Director of GAO’s Acquisition Sourcing and Management Team, who gave his insight into the process of acquisition; specifically, regarding the Department of Homeland Security.

Since it was created in 2003, DHS has spent billions of dollars on contracting to meet its mission.

About $15 billion worth of those contracts have failed, and the Government Accountability Office has been watching.

Projects such as the U.S. Coast Guard’s Deepwater program, SBINet and US VISIT have been carefully eyed and were brought up as problems during a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Management, Investigations and Oversight on Wednesday.

Hutton recently testified before committee and explained what the GAO thinks DHS should do to solve some of its acquisition woes.

Some of the key points we were trying to convey is that there’s some progress that DHS has made in their acquisition management function, but there’s a long way to go. What we highlighted were a couple key areas — one being acquisition planning and the need improve that so you can work towards better outcomes — and then, of course, the oversight of the contractors.

Hutton says one of the main challenges involves creating valuable contracting policies and then getting DHS employees to understand and adhere to them.

I would say something like acquisition planning, which is what we highlighted is one area that I think we’ve come back to plenty of times. It’s, quite frankly, not just a DHS issue. I know in other work we do across the government, acquisition planning is an area that usually is one of the causes of why we might have problems in the later stages.

The Department of Homeland Security is the newest agency and comprised of what used to be 22 distinct federal agencies. Hutton says this might be part of the problem.

Our past work has shown that when you bring a new organization together like that it takes, at a minimum, five to seven years [to get organized], so there are some growing pains that you would typically see. I think what our work is pointing to is . . . they are are addressing issues and they’re trying to address our recommendations. . . . It’s an organization that is growing and they have to learn how to work together and how to have integrated processes and practices. I think that the fact that it’s been since 2003 doesn’t negate the fact that we might have had more progress in some of the key areas.

Hutton uses Deepwater as an example, saying that, in the past GAO raised concerns about the program’s management.

In the past year and a half — two years — the U.S. Coast Guard has really made some broad, sweeping changes as to how they approach the management of that project. We’re hopeful. We issued a report recently that talked about some of the improvements in the management, but I think a key area — like in other areas — you need to have trained and sufficient government staff to oversee the work.

Hutton says, overall, DHS is working on making the management of massive investments more disciplined and has been since 2005. He says this is an area where progress still needs to be made.

It’s not all bad news, though. Hutton says DHS has made progress when it comes to acquisition oversight. The agency now has a plan in place which ensures department-wide acquisition officials and those working in component agencies are on the same page.

Hutton’s testimony encompassed over two years of GAO reports about DHS.

In addition to acquisition, he notes that DHS is still dealing with some additional issues.

Other recommendations are more about . . . do they have the right people, a sufficient number of people, the people with the right skills? One of the issues that was talked about . . . was the need for contract specialists and my only point there was, yes, there is a need for contract specialists, but one must think about other types of expertise needed . . . program managers, cost estimators, systems engineers — people with all these different disciplines that are important to bring acquisitions to good outcomes.

Hutton says acquisition and how its managed within the federal government is a large issue and many of its problems aren’t simply related to DHS.

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On the Web:

GAO – Department of Homeland Security: Progress and Continuing Concerns with Acquisition Management

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