DEPARTMENT
OF DEFENSE
The Department of
Defense (DoD) is not only the largest federal agency, it is also one of
the nation’s largest organizations, employing nearly 3 million people
and spending over $350 billion on defending the United States. Management
of any organization this size is challenging, yet DoD continues to progress
in achieving reforms.
| Initiative |
Status |
Progress |
| Human
Capital — DoD’s Workforce Restructuring Matrix shows
significant progress in reorganizations, delayering, outsourcing
efforts, and reengineered/ streamlined processes. Agency strategic
plans and human resources planning strategies are matched up with
mission, goals, and organizational objectives. DoD reduced headquarters
staffing by more than 11 percent. |
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| Competitive
Sourcing —The Department is making progress in subjecting
functions that are commercial in nature to competition. For example,
DoD is competing base support functions at several installations
across the country. DoD is announcing competions for almost 10,000
positions in 2003 and plans to announce competitions for an additional
10,000 positions in 2004. DoD is also seeking to return military
members performing commercial functions to the war-fighting ranks. |
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| Financial
Management — In 2002, the Department began to implement
aggressively its plan to completely overhaul its financial management
systems. DoD awarded a contract to a group of contractors headed
by IBM. Also, the Department began efforts to speed-up the production
of its Financial Statements and to improve its management of real
property. |
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| Expanding
E-Government — DoD has submitted complete business cases
justifying 180 major projects, totaling nearly $14 billion, or 49
percent of a total IT investment of $28 billion. |
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| Budget/Performance
Integration — The Department has developed benchmarks
in a number of areas. For example, DoD has developed measures for
its goal of maintaining a quality force, improving the quality of
facilities, and developing transformational capabilities. DoD is
well underway in having a Department-wide system that combines performance
measures with budget resources for many activities. |
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| Privatization
of Military Housing - DoD has a goal of eliminating 163,000
inadequate housing units (out of a total of 273,000) by 2007. The
2004 Budget includes plans to achieve this goal for all but 7,000
Air Force homes. To date, DoD has privatized 26,166 family homes,
about 10 percent of its current inventory. |
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arrows
indicate change in status since baseline evaluation on September 30,
2001. |
Program
Assessments
The twelve
DoD programs reviewed are, on average, moderately effective. Most of the
PARTs revealed that the program purposes are clear and that DoD plans
well. The PARTs also reveal that DoD does exhibit strong management practices
except in financial management, a problem DoD's leadership is attempting
to address. In addition, the assessment shows that DoD needs more specific
short and long-term goals and performance measures for some programs,
also an area that DoD leadership is addressing.
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