Test and Evaluation: The Director, Operational Test and Evaluation's Controls Over Contractors

ISBN-10: 128903950X
ISBN-13: 9781289039509
Pages: 26
Language: English
Published: 2013-06
Publisher: BiblioGov
Authors: U. S. Government Accountability Office, U S Government Accountability Office

Description

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Defense's (DOD) Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation's (DOT&E) use of contractors. GAO found that: (1) DOT&E policies and procedures for managing contracts for operational test and evaluation (OT&E) support complied with existing guidelines; (2) DOT&E took measures that were consistent with regulations requiring agencies to guard against contractor conflicts of interest; (3) DOT&E use of the Institute for Defense Analyses as a contractor for OT&E support was permissible under federal regulations and appropriate, since the Institute was less likely than private contractors to have conflicts of interest; (4) of the $12.5 million DOT&E obligated to it during fiscal years 1987 through 1989, the Institute used about $2 million for 51 consultants and 2 subcontractors; (5) of those 51 consultants, 2 had been involved in overseeing programs that they subsequently performed operational test assessments on for DOT&E; and (6) in four instances, the Institute performed both acquisition and operational testing functions on the same weapon systems. GAO believes that disclosure of a consultant's prior work would be consistent with the regulation requiring disclosure of federally funded research and development centers' affairs.