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National Defense > Blog > Posts > Shortage of Acquisition Workers: It Depends on How You Look at It
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2/11/2010 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.
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