GAO: DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY - A Strategic Approach Is Needed to Better Ensure the Acquisition Workforce Can Meet Mission Needs

GAO: DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY - A Strategic Approach Is Needed to Better Ensure the Acquisition Workforce Can Meet Mission Needs

Highlights of GAO-09-30, a report to congressional requesters

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is one of the largest procurement spending agencies in the federal government. In fiscal year 2007, DHS obligated about $12 billion for a wide range of goods and services to meet complex mission needs. Like other federal agencies, DHS has faced challenges in building and sustaining a capable workforce to support its acquisitions.

GAO was asked to identify and assess DHS’s efforts to build and sustain an effective acquisition workforce and determine the extent to which DHS has planned strategically for the acquisition workforce. To conduct the work, GAO collected and reviewed data and interviewed officials from the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer (CPO), DHS’s nine procurement offices, and nine program offices, and reviewed in detail workforce information and data for acquisition support contracts from selected offices.

What GAO Recommends
GAO recommends that DHS take several actions to better address acquisition workforce challenges, including: establishing an interim acquisition workforce definition and an implementation plan for current initiatives; developing plans as appropriate to expand current initiatives; establishing a coordinated planning process; and improving acquisition workforce data. DHS generally concurred with these recommendations and noted efforts under way to address them.

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Department of Homeland Security (DHS), GAO