The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has given the Department of Defense (DoD) a mixed report card on its IT systems: while there’s been a bit of progress in performance reporting and development planning, the DoD still has a long way to go.
The Federal watchdog re-examined nearly $9 billion allocated to 25 IT programs within the DoD for fiscal years 2021 through 2023, in addition to $31 billion for over 720 standard IT infrastructure investments.
The GAO’s revised report, released on Aug. 22, shows that while the Pentagon has made some progress since then, there is still substantial work needed.
Specifically, eight programs still failed to fully report on their goal achievements, though five programs did show improvement in this area. In the initial report released on June 13, programs did not fully report their goal achievements.
However, much like in the initial review, GAO found that three programs either did not identify the minimum number of operational performance metrics required by the Office of Management and Budget or failed to report on performance targets adequately.
“This shortfall limits DoD’s ability to hold programs accountable and oversee performance effectively,” GAO said.
Similarly, 11 programs still lacked approved plans for user training and system deployment, increasing the risk of ineffective system adoption and user dissatisfaction. Additionally, six programs had no approved cybersecurity strategies, despite previous GAO recommendations for the DoD to develop these strategies.
“DoD officials have committed to following up with the programs lacking strategies, but until these are in place, the programs remain vulnerable to cybersecurity risks,” the report reads.
GAO issued two recommendations to DoD – to accurately report operational performance metrics to the Federal IT Dashboard and to develop user training and deployment plans as needed.
However, the Pentagon disagreed with the recommendations, claiming it has already acted on them. But according to GAO, the department has not provided sufficient evidence to prove that case.
The GAO maintains that the recommendations are still valid and necessary.
