National Defense > Blog > Posts > Shortage of Acquisition Workers: It Depends on How You Look at It

2/11/2010

Shortage of Acquisition Workers:  It Depends on How You Look at It
One of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ most championed reforms has been his plan to hire 20,000 workers to expand the Pentagon’s weapons acquisition corps.

But before the Defense Department rushes to hire more people, it needs to better define what it means to be an acquisition worker and to identify precisely what skills are lacking, says a recent RAND Corp. study.

The impetus behind Gates’ initiative is the need to bolster an acquisition work force that, by some estimates, has shrunk precipitously since the 1990s. Following the spending surge after 9/11, that work force was ill equipped to cope with a rapidly escalating contracting workload. One of the consequences was the increased reliance on contractors to perform program oversight and other duties because the government was short of in-house talent.

The RAND study shows that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, the acquisition work force has grown steadily since the early 1990s.

The lack of a consistent definition of the acquisition work force skews the data and may lead the Pentagon to hire people who are not really needed, or to neglect to hire in areas that are more critically understaffed, the study suggests.

The RAND analysis shows that the total number of Defense Department civilians in key acquisition-related occupational groupings increased through the 1980s, reached a peak in 1992, plunged to a low point in 2000, and has climbed since then. Between 1992 and 2007, the number of defense acquisition civilians increased by 14 percent, says the RAND report titled “Shining a Spotlight on the Defense Acquisition Workforce -- Again.”

“The dichotomy between trends based on the data we analyzed and trends based on official counts can be explained by shifts in the acquisition work force definition -- in particular, an increased emphasis on including scientists and engineers in the work force count,” the study says.

Whereas in 1992, 38 percent of Defense Department personnel in acquisition-related engineering occupations were counted as part of the acquisition work force, that figure was 65 percent by 2007.

Under the latter scenario, the number of Defense Department civilians in acquisition-related occupations increased dramatically between 1980 and 1992, began to decline until about 2001, and then experienced slight growth through 2007.

The work force that did not include scientists and engineers was relatively stable between 1992 and 2007, RAND analysts note. The number of defense civilians in program management and logistics has increased substantially and consistently since 1980. In contrast, the total number of civilians in the contracting, quality assurance, and auditing areas has declined steadily since the late 1980s.

The decline is most striking in quality assurance (44 percent), auditing (26 percent) and contracting (23 percent).

The RAND analysis suggests that the contracting, quality assurance, and auditing occupational groups -- groups that would likely have been most affected by increased workloads -- have experienced the most significant declines in work force size over time.

On the use of contractors to perform acquisition functions, the data also fluctuate from one organization to another.

At the Air Force Materiel Command, for example, contractors represent 31 percent of the work force at acquisition centers, 23 percent of the work force at laboratory directorates, and 47 percent of the work force at test and evaluation centers. RAND also cites a Government Accountability Office study that says that within 61 major weapons programs, 41 percent of program office staff consisted of contractors. The largest number of contractors was found among engineering and technical staff -- where 53 percent were not government employees. Air Force contractors, the study says, tended to have as much or more experience in cost estimation compared with the public-sector workers. The study also found that the Air Force was relying on contractors to do the actual cost-estimating work, whereas the in-house staff tended to be financial management generalists.

“Over three-quarters of defense acquisition programs reported that they used contractors as a way to get around critical constraints: personnel ceiling, civilian pay budget constraints, limitations with the federal government hiring process, or a lack of in-house capability in a particular area,” the RAND report says. These findings echoed those from an earlier Defense Department Inspector General study.

GAO attributes the Defense Department’s reliance on contractor support to a “critical shortage of certain acquisition professionals with technical skills.” The agency notes that the Defense Department has given contractors increased responsibility for “key aspects of setting and executing a program’s business case,” including requirements development and product design.
Posted at 3:39 PM by Sandra Erwin | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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