This is the accessible text file for GAO report number GAO-13-117 
entitled 'Acquisition Workforce: DOT Lacks Data, Oversight, and 
Strategic Focus Needed to Address Significant Workforce Challenges' 
which was released on January 23, 2013. 

This text file was formatted by the U.S. Government Accountability 
Office (GAO) to be accessible to users with visual impairments, as 
part of a longer term project to improve GAO products' accessibility. 
Every attempt has been made to maintain the structural and data 
integrity of the original printed product. Accessibility features, 
such as text descriptions of tables, consecutively numbered footnotes 
placed at the end of the file, and the text of agency comment letters, 
are provided but may not exactly duplicate the presentation or format 
of the printed version. The portable document format (PDF) file is an 
exact electronic replica of the printed version. We welcome your 
feedback. Please E-mail your comments regarding the contents or 
accessibility features of this document to Webmaster@gao.gov. 

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright 
protection in the United States. It may be reproduced and distributed 
in its entirety without further permission from GAO. Because this work 
may contain copyrighted images or other material, permission from the 
copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to reproduce this 
material separately. 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

Report to Congressional Committees: 

January 2013: 

Acquisition Workforce: 

DOT Lacks Data, Oversight, and Strategic Focus Needed to Address 
Significant Workforce Challenges: 

GAO-13-117: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-13-117, a report to congressional committees. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

With $5.6 billion in procurement spending in fiscal year 2011, DOT 
relies on its acquisition workforce—including contracting and program 
management staff—to negotiate and administer contracts and manage 
large-scale acquisition programs. Having sufficient numbers of 
adequately trained acquisition professionals is critical to ensuring 
maximum value and benefit to the department. 

In a fiscal year 2012 Senate appropriations bill report, GAO was 
directed to assess (1) DOT’s efforts to identify acquisition workforce 
needs, and (2) the Office of the Secretary of Transportation’s role in 
providing oversight and support for acquisition workforce planning and 
management. GAO reviewed DOT’s acquisition workforce plans for 2010, 
2011, and 2012 along with supporting documentation, and interviewed 
agency officials on how the data were collected and used. The primary 
focus was on five OAs that accounted for 92 percent of DOT procurement 
spending in fiscal year 2011. 

What GAO Found: 

The Department of Transportation (DOT) lacks sufficient and reliable 
data to fully identify its acquisition workforce needs and assess 
progress in addressing shortfalls over time. Over the last 3 years, 
the Office of the Senior Procurement Executive—-the office within the 
Office of the Secretary of Transportation responsible for department-
wide acquisition workforce management-—has submitted acquisition 
workforce plans that reported progress in increasing the size of the 
workforce and the number of personnel certified to meet education, 
training, and experience requirements. However, GAO identified data 
limitations due to a lack of internal controls to maintain, compare, 
and reconcile the data compiled from DOT’s 11 operating 
administrations (OA), and determined that the department-level data 
were not sufficient to assess progress over time. For example, DOT did 
not maintain the data it used to prepare the 2010 and 2011 plans and 
in some cases the data were also not available from the OAs. By 
contrast, GAO obtained the data DOT used to prepare the 2012 plan, 
compared it with data from the OAs, and interviewed OA officials about 
the sources and methods they used to report the data. GAO found 
inconsistencies in how the OAs reported their data that affect the 
reliability of the department’s aggregate data, but determined that 
the OA-level data were sufficiently reliable to make observations 
about staffing challenges and certification shortfalls at the 
individual OAs. Specifically, GAO found that 4 of the 11 OAs would 
need to replace 50 percent or more of their contract specialists by 
the end of fiscal year 2013 to meet staffing targets. In addition, 
some OAs reported low certification rates for program/project managers 
and contracting officer’s representatives, which increases the risk of 
DOT programs not receiving appropriate oversight. 

DOT lacks the strategic focus and oversight needed to ensure that the 
department can meet its acquisition workforce goals. Federal policy 
requires agencies to conduct strategic planning to identify short- and 
long-term needs and plans to address them. The Office of the Senior 
Procurement Executive relies on the OAs to conduct acquisition 
workforce planning, but has not provided oversight or support to help 
ensure that they collect and maintain consistent data or use it to 
develop strategies to address workforce goals. Officials from the 
Senior Procurement Executive’s office stated that they do not monitor 
the OAs’ acquisition workforce data throughout the year and that their 
capacity to direct planning efforts is limited in part because they do 
not have the staff needed to perform oversight. Instead, officials 
stated that the office provides a focal point for coordination among 
the OAs, approves certifications, and provides information on training 
opportunities. According to leading practices identified in prior GAO 
work, agencies should link workforce goals to budget formulation to 
ensure that requests are adequate to implement workforce strategies. 
The Office of the Senior Procurement Executive has taken steps to 
align workforce plans with its strategic goals and budget, but given 
the challenges with maintaining reliable data, lacks a sound baseline 
for assessing progress or for making a business case for directing 
resources or management attention to OAs that may face the greatest 
workforce risks. Until DOT addresses these issues, the department 
faces substantial risk that the workforce will not have the capacity 
or skills needed to effectively manage the department’s acquisitions. 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO recommends that the Secretary of Transportation take steps to 
improve DOT’s ability to address workforce needs, such as improving 
internal controls for acquisition workforce data and providing 
guidance to ensure that the OAs collect and report workforce data 
consistently. DOT acknowledged past data and coordination challenges 
and generally concurred with our recommendations. DOT also stated it 
now has the management framework needed to effectively monitor and 
develop the acquisition workforce. 

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-117]. For more 
information, contact Belva Martin at (202) 512-4841 or martinb@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Background: 

DOT Lacks Sufficient and Reliable Data to Fully Identify and Address 
Workforce Needs: 

DOT Lacks the Strategic Focus and Oversight Needed for Effective 
Workforce Planning and Management: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Transportation: 

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Tables: 

Table 1: Key Roles and Responsibilities for DOT Acquisition Workforce 
Planning and Management: 

Table 2: Department of Transportation Fiscal Year 2011 Procurement 
Spending by Operating Administration: 

Table 3: Estimated Number of Contract Specialists Needed to Meet 
Fiscal Year 2013 Staffing Targets: 

Table 4: Number of Contracting Officer's Representatives and Percent 
Certified in Fiscal Year 2011: 

Abbreviations: 

DOT: Department of Transportation: 

FAA: Federal Aviation Administration: 

OA: Operating Administration: 

OFPP: Office of Federal Procurement Policy: 

FAITAS: Federal Acquisition Institute Training Application System: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

The Honorable Chairman:
The Honorable Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and 
Related Agencies:
Committee on Appropriations:
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Tom Latham:
Chairman:
The Honorable Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and 
Related Agencies:
Committee on Appropriations:
House of Representatives: 

GAO and others have long recognized that the size and capabilities of 
the government's acquisition workforce is a strategic priority. In our 
2011 high risk series update, we reported that the shortage of trained 
acquisition personnel impedes the capacity and capability of agencies, 
and puts the federal government at risk for significant overcharges 
and wasteful spending of the hundreds of billions of contract dollars 
it spends for goods and services each year.[Footnote 1] In fiscal year 
2011, the Department of Transportation's (DOT) acquisition workforce 
negotiated and administered more than $5 billion in contracts to 
procure a range of products and services and managed large-scale 
acquisition programs to build and maintain the national transportation 
system. However, DOT's Inspector General reported that the department 
has not made sufficient progress in implementing strategies and goals 
to increase the capability of the acquisition workforce and found that 
gaps in acquisition workforce hiring and development have contributed 
to poor contract administration and substantial cost overruns on 
critical programs, such as those related to the Federal Aviation 
Administration's (FAA) Next Generation Air Transportation System. 
[Footnote 2] 

In response to a Senate report mandate, we assessed: (1) the efforts 
of the Office of the Secretary of Transportation and DOT's operating 
administrations (OA) to identify acquisition workforce needs, and (2) 
the Office of the Secretary's role in providing oversight and support 
for acquisition workforce planning and management.[Footnote 3] For the 
purposes of this report, we focused on the Office of the Senior 
Procurement Executive, the office within the Office of the Secretary 
with primary responsibility for acquisition workforce planning and 
management. 

We used the following methods to conduct our review: 

* To assess the efforts of the Office of the Senior Procurement 
Executive and DOT's OAs to identify acquisition workforce staffing and 
training needs, we reviewed DOT's acquisition workforce plans for 
2010, 2011, and 2012 and interviewed officials from the Office of the 
Senior Procurement Executive and the Office of Human Resources to 
discuss how the plans were compiled. Officials from the Office of the 
Senior Procurement Executive were not able to provide the OA-level 
data used to prepare the 2010 and 2011 plans because this information 
was not retained after the plans were submitted. As a result of this 
and other limitations, we concluded that the aggregate data presented 
in DOT's acquisition workforce plans were not a sufficient or reliable 
basis to identify changes over time in the size of the workforce or 
the number personnel certified to meet federal requirements for 
education, training, and experience. We obtained the OA-level data 
that the Office of the Senior Procurement Executive used to compile 
the 2012 plan and assessed reliability by comparing it with data we 
obtained from the OAs. We also interviewed officials from the five OAs 
with the highest procurement spending in fiscal year 2011, based on 
data from the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation, to 
discuss the sources and methods used to track data on the acquisition 
workforce. Our review primarily focused on these five OAs because they 
accounted for 92 percent of the department's procurement activity. The 
data we reviewed included information on the size and certification 
rates of the acquisition workforce, as well as hiring targets, and 
estimated attrition through fiscal year 2013. We found inconsistencies 
in how the OAs reported their data that would affect the reliability 
of the department's aggregate data, but determined that the OA-level 
data used to prepare DOT's 2012 plan were sufficiently reliable to 
make qualitative observations about staffing and certification 
challenges at the individual OAs. 

* To determine the extent to which the Office of the Senior 
Procurement Executive has provided oversight and support for 
acquisition workforce planning and management, we reviewed relevant 
federal policy and guidance, as well as DOT policy, guidance, and 
acquisition workforce plans for 2010, 2011, and 2012. We interviewed 
officials from the Office of the Senior Procurement Executive and the 
Office of Human Resources to obtain their views on their roles and 
responsibilities. We also reviewed budget and strategic planning 
documents from the Office of the Secretary and the Office of the 
Senior Procurement Executive. In addition, we interviewed officials 
from the five OAs with the greatest amount of procurement spending in 
fiscal year 2011 to obtain their views about the level of support and 
oversight from the Office of the Senior Procurement Executive. Based 
on this review, we identified the Senior Procurement Executive 
responsibilities to support and oversee acquisition workforce planning 
and management and determined the extent to which these functions are 
performed. We compared these actions to leading practices for 
workforce planning identified by GAO and others.[Footnote 4] See 
appendix I for more information about our scope and methodology. 

We conducted this performance audit from March 2012 to January 2013 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

Background: 

Congress has recognized the need for a professional acquisition 
workforce by establishing education, training, and experience 
requirements for entry into and advancement in the acquisition career 
fields for federal agencies.[Footnote 5] A number of governmental 
organizations play critical roles in assisting agencies in building 
and sustaining their acquisition workforces. Among these agencies, the 
Office of Management and Budget's Office of Federal Procurement Policy 
(OFPP) provides government-wide guidance on acquisition workforce 
issues, and for civilian agencies the Federal Acquisition Institute 
promotes the development of the civilian acquisition workforce as well 
as an information management system--the Federal Acquisition Institute 
Training Application System--to collect and analyze acquisition 
workforce data.[Footnote 6] 

In 2005, OFPP issued guidance to civilian agencies on developing and 
managing the acquisition workforce and directed agency Chief 
Acquisition Officers--responsible for monitoring and evaluating agency 
acquisition functions--to carry out specific acquisition workforce 
actions.[Footnote 7] These actions include appointing an Acquisition 
Career Manager and developing and maintaining an acquisition career 
management program to provide coordinated input to the Chief 
Acquisition Officer and Chief Human Capital Officer regarding short-
and long-term agency needs, propose an annual budget for acquisition 
workforce development, and maintain consistent agency-wide data on 
those serving in the acquisition workforce. The guidance also 
identifies positions that are to be included at a minimum in the 
definition of the workforce so they can be trained and developed using 
common standards and directed the Federal Acquisition Institute to 
develop certification programs to generally serve as one means to 
demonstrate that an employee meets the core education, training, and 
experience requirements for a variety of acquisition-related 
disciplines. The Federal Acquisition Institute established 
certification programs for contracting in 2006 and for contracting 
officer's representatives and program and project managers in 2007. 
[Footnote 8] 

In 2009, OFPP issued the Acquisition Workforce Development Strategic 
Plan for Civilian Agencies for Fiscal Years 2010-2014 to further guide 
agency planning efforts. The plan establishes an annual workforce 
planning process to be managed by OFPP as well as a 5-year action plan 
to improve workforce development efforts and the workforce management 
infrastructure. Agencies are required to develop annual acquisition 
workforce human capital plans that identify strategies and goals for 
increasing the capacity and capability of the acquisition workforce 
for the period ending in fiscal year 2014.[Footnote 9] According to 
OFPP, successful workforce planning and implementation should involve 
significant and meaningful collaboration among agency leaders. 
Specifically, Chief Acquisition Officers are to work with their Chief 
Human Capital Officers, Acquisition Career Managers, and Chief 
Financial Officers to plan for growth in the capacity and capability 
of the acquisition workforce. In 2011, OFPP also issued a memorandum 
highlighting hiring flexibilities such as the availability of direct 
hire authority and the Student Career Experience Program. 

At DOT, the Senior Procurement Executive, within the Office of the 
Secretary, provides oversight of DOT acquisition policy and is 
delegated many of the Chief Acquisition Officer responsibilities. 
Specifically, the Senior Procurement Executive has primary 
responsibility for acquisition workforce management, issues related to 
strategic acquisition policy, and implementation of acquisition 
workforce policies. DOT relies on collaboration between the Senior 
Procurement Executive and the department's OAs to manage DOT's 
acquisition workforce. For example, DOT policy directs the Senior 
Procurement Executive to appoint an Acquisition Career Manager to 
manage the acquisition workforce, identify workforce development 
strategies, and coordinate with OA representatives to ensure that the 
OAs maintain accurate and consistent data on the acquisition 
workforce. FAA is exempt from the federal acquisition system--the 
various statutes and regulations that govern federal procurement 
practices by federal government agencies--and has its own acquisition 
management system, which includes its own acquisition workforce plan 
and acquisition workforce career development program.[Footnote 10] 
Table 1 provides the roles and responsibilities of key acquisition 
workforce management positions outside of FAA. 

Table 1: Key Roles and Responsibilities for DOT Acquisition Workforce 
Planning and Management: 

Senior Procurement Executive: 
* Develop and maintain an acquisition career management program; 
* Appoint an Acquisition Career Manager; 
* Define the members of the DOT acquisition workforce; 
* Ensure to the maximum extent practicable that acquisition workforce 
policies and procedures are uniform in their implementation throughout 
DOT. 

Acquisition Career Manager: 
* Manage the acquisition workforce, including identifying training 
requirements and other workforce development strategies; 
* Administer the agency's certification program; 
* Provide coordinated input to the Senior Procurement Executive and 
Chief Human Capital Officer regarding short-and long-term human 
capital strategic planning; 
* Coordinate with OA representatives to ensure that they maintain 
accurate and consistent department-wide data on those serving in DOT's 
acquisition workforce in Federal Acquisition Institute's information 
management system. 

Operating Administration Chief Acquisition Officer: 
* Ensure the acquisition workforce has the necessary competencies, 
training, and certifications; 
* Identify a training budget for the acquisition workforce. 

Source: DOT. 

Note: DOT's Acquisition Career Development Policy does not apply to 
FAA. 

[End of table] 

DOT has multiple missions--primarily focusing on transportation 
mobility and safety--that are carried out by its OAs. In fiscal year 
2011, 5 of DOT's 11 OAs with procurement spending accounted for 92 
percent of the department's $5.6 billion in procurements. See table 2 
for fiscal year 2011 procurement spending by the 11 OAs. 

Table 2: Department of Transportation Fiscal Year 2011 Procurement 
Spending by Operating Administration: 

DOT operating administration: Federal Aviation Administration; 
Procurement spending: $3,535; 
Percent of total procurement spending: 63%. 

DOT operating administration: Federal Highway Administration; 
Procurement spending: $626; 
Percent of total procurement spending: 11%. 

DOT operating administration: Office of the Secretary of 
Transportation[A]; 
Procurement spending: $445; 
Percent of total procurement spending: 8%. 

DOT operating administration: Maritime Administration; 
Procurement spending: $365; 
Percent of total procurement spending: 6%. 

DOT operating administration: Federal Transit Administration; 
Procurement spending: $206; 
Percent of total procurement spending: 4%. 

DOT operating administration: Research and Innovative Technology 
Administration; 
Procurement spending: $176; 
Percent of total procurement spending: 3%. 

DOT operating administration: National Highway Traffic Safety 
Administration; 
Procurement spending: $118; 
Percent of total procurement spending: 2%. 

DOT operating administration: Federal Railroad Administration; 
Procurement spending: $67; 
Percent of total procurement spending: 1%. 

DOT operating administration: Federal Motor Carrier Safety 
Administration; 
Procurement spending: $45; 
Percent of total procurement spending: 0.8%. 

DOT operating administration: Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety 
Administration; 
Procurement spending: $35; 
Percent of total procurement spending: 0.6%. 

DOT operating administration: Saint Lawrence Seaway Development 
Corporation; 
Procurement spending: $16; 
Percent of total procurement spending: 0.3%. 

DOT operating administration: Total; 
Procurement spending: $5,635; 
Percent of total procurement spending: 100%. 

Source: Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation. 

[A] According to DOT officials, Office of the Secretary procurements 
typically include contracts such as those for building security and 
facilities. The office also procures on behalf of DOT customers 
including the Office of the Inspector General and the Research and 
Innovative Technology Administration. 

[End of table] 

In May 2011, the DOT Inspector General identified a number of 
weaknesses in the Office of the Secretary's acquisition function. 
[Footnote 11] Among the factors contributing to weaknesses, the 
Inspector General identified an organizational structure that does not 
support the acquisition function, and long-standing vacancies in key 
leadership positions, including the Senior Procurement Executive and 
Acquisition Career Manager. According to the Inspector General, the 
acquisition structure created an additional layer of management review 
and restricted direct communication from the Senior Procurement 
Executive to DOT's leaders, limiting the ability to promote 
acquisition as a strategic contributor to DOT's success. In December 
2011, DOT changed the organizational structure so that the Senior 
Procurement Executive now has a direct line of reporting to the 
department's Chief Acquisition Officer on strategic acquisition 
workforce management and other strategic issues, thereby elevating the 
procurement executive's ability to raise issues to a more strategic 
level within the department. 

DOT Lacks Sufficient and Reliable Data to Fully Identify and Address 
Workforce Needs: 

DOT's Senior Procurement Executive, responsible for acquisition 
workforce planning and management, collects workforce data for federal 
reporting purposes, but has not maintained sufficient and reliable 
data needed to fully understand the department's workforce needs or to 
identify progress in addressing gaps in staffing and certification 
rates over time. According to OFPP requirements, agencies are to 
collect, maintain, and utilize data on the acquisition workforce to 
ensure effective management. Federal internal control standards also 
call for managers to collect and maintain data to assess performance 
over time to ensure effectiveness and efficiency of operations and 
compliance with applicable laws and regulations.[Footnote 12] DOT 
submitted acquisition workforce plans to OFPP in 2010, 2011, and 2012 
that reported progress in increasing department-wide acquisition 
workforce staff levels and certification rates, but did not maintain 
the supporting data in 2010 and 2011, and lacked internal controls to 
ensure the quality of the data. We also identified data discrepancies 
about the size of the acquisition workforce reported to OFPP. As a 
result, we concluded that the aggregate data presented in DOT's 
acquisition workforce plans were not a sufficient or reliable basis 
upon which to draw conclusions or identify changes in staffing and 
certification rates over time. By contrast, we obtained the data DOT 
used to prepare the 2012 plan, compared it with data from the OAs, and 
interviewed OA officials about the sources and methods they used to 
report the data. We found inconsistencies in how the OAs reported 
their data that would affect the reliability of the department's 
aggregate data, but determined that the OA-level data were 
sufficiently reliable to make observations about staffing and 
certification rates at the individual OAs. Based on our analysis of 
this data, we found that four OAs would potentially need to replace 
from 50 percent to over 80 percent of their contract specialists by 
the end of fiscal year 2013 to meet staffing targets. In addition, 
some OAs have low certification rates particularly for program/project 
managers and contracting officer's representatives, which increases 
the risk that DOT acquisition programs are not being effectively 
managed and that contractors are not receiving appropriate oversight. 

DOT Lacks Sufficient and Reliable Data to Assess Progress over Time: 

According to OFPP requirements, agencies are to collect, maintain, and 
utilize information to ensure effective management of the acquisition 
workforce. In accordance with OFPP's Acquisition Workforce Development 
Strategic Plan for Civilian Agencies for Fiscal Years 2010-2014, DOT 
submitted annual acquisition workforce plans in 2010, 2011, and 2012. 
To do so, the Acquisition Career Manager distributed an OFPP data 
request template to the OAs and aggregated the OA-level data received 
into a single department-wide plan. Each of DOT's plans has included 
data on the size of the acquisition workforce, estimated attrition, 
and targets for future staffing levels. 

Based on the workforce plans DOT submitted to OFPP, DOT reported 
increases in the size of the acquisition workforce and certification 
rates for all acquisition workforce segments reported--contract 
specialists, contracting officers, program/project managers, and 
contracting officer's representatives--from fiscal year 2009 to 2011. 
[Footnote 13] However, the Office of the Senior Procurement Executive 
did not retain the underlying data it used to prepare the 2010 and 
2011 plans and in some cases, the data were also not available from 
the OAs. As a result, we were unable to independently verify the 
accuracy and completeness of the department-wide data. Moreover, we 
found inconsistencies in the data DOT reported to OFPP. For example, 
DOT's 2010 plan presents conflicting data on the size of the 
acquisition workforce, ranging from almost 600 to over 3,000 staff. 
According to DOT officials, one table was developed by acquisition 
officials and the other by human resources officials. As a result of 
these discrepancies and other limitations, we concluded that the 
aggregate data presented in DOT's acquisition workforce plans were 
unreliable and DOT should not use the information to draw conclusions 
or identify changes in staffing and certification levels over time. 

For DOT's 2012 plan, we compared data we received from the Office of 
the Senior Procurement Executive and the OAs and interviewed OA 
officials about the methods and sources they used to collect the data. 
We found that the OAs were not consistent in how they reported their 
workforce data due in part to a lack of internal controls to ensure 
that the OAs are collecting and maintaining reliable and consistent 
data to inform acquisition workforce planning and management. Internal 
controls generally should be designed to assure that ongoing 
monitoring occurs in the course of normal operations to include 
comparisons, reconciliations, and other management actions that ensure 
information quality over time. While these inconsistencies affect the 
reliability of the department's aggregate data, we determined that the 
OA-level data used to prepare DOT's 2012 plan were sufficiently 
reliable to make qualitative observations about the staffing 
challenges and certification shortfalls that the individual OAs face. 

Officials from the Office of the Senior Procurement Executive stated 
that they do not have data reliability checks in place and did not 
provide guidance to ensure that the OAs are collecting and maintaining 
reliable and consistent data to inform acquisition workforce planning 
and management. In the absence of guidance to ensure consistency in 
the information collected, OAs took different approaches to reporting 
the number of personnel in the acquisition workforce. For example, 
some OAs cited challenges with tracking the number of contracting 
officer's representatives in the workforce or did not track them 
altogether. In contrast with contract specialists, who are associated 
with a job series that can be tracked in personnel systems, 
contracting officer's representatives are not designated by a specific 
job series and their duties are sometimes performed as a collateral 
duty on a part-time basis. OA officials also explained that the number 
of employees performing contracting officer's representative duties 
changes constantly as contracts begin and end, requiring that lists be 
revalidated on a continual basis for accuracy. Officials from the 
Office of the Secretary and the Federal Railroad Administration 
reported that they had not tracked the number of contracting officer's 
representatives in the past. The Office of the Secretary was not able 
to provide us with the number of contracting officer's representatives 
in the workforce for fiscal years 2009, 2010, and 2011 and the Federal 
Railroad Administration provided estimates. 

Some Operating Administrations Face Significant Acquisition Workforce 
Staffing Challenges and Certification Shortfalls: 

Based on our analysis of the data collected from the OAs to prepare 
the 2012 Acquisition Human Capital Plan, we found that some OAs face 
significant acquisition workforce staffing challenges and 
certification shortfalls. We also found that the OAs did not use a 
consistent or well-documented approach to estimate attrition which 
could result in an under-or overstatement of the gap they would need 
to fill to achieve their staffing targets, and that staffing 
challenges may be understated because some OAs constrained their 
workforce estimates to reflect budget realities. 

Staffing Challenges: 

We found that the OAs face significant challenges in maintaining 
sufficient numbers of contract specialists who perform a range of 
acquisition services, such as market research, preparation of 
statements of work, and the development and management of acquisition 
plans. Based on our analysis of DOT data, we found that four OAs would 
potentially need to replace from 50 percent to over 80 percent of 
their contract specialists by the end of fiscal year 2013 to manage 
estimated attrition and achieve their staffing targets as shown in 
table 3. The data in the table reflect estimated attrition and 
staffing targets for fiscal years 2012 and 2013 that DOT reported to 
OFPP in April 2012 and do not take into account actual hiring and 
attrition, or changes to estimates. 

Table 3: Estimated Number of Contract Specialists Needed to Meet 
Fiscal Year 2013 Staffing Targets: 

Operating administration: Federal Aviation Administration; 
Contract specialists for FY 2011: 284; 
Estimated attrition, targets, and gaps: 
Combined attrition FY 2012 and FY 2013: 100; 
FY 2013 staffing target: 337; 
Potential gap to fill to achieve FY 2013 staffing target: 153; 
Potential gap as percentage of FY 2011 staffing level: 54%. 

Operating administration: Federal Highway Administration; 
Contract specialists for FY 2011: 55; 
Estimated attrition, targets, and gaps: 
Combined attrition FY 2012 and FY 2013: 6; 
FY 2013 staffing target: 61; 
Potential gap to fill to achieve FY 2013 staffing target: 12; 
Potential gap as percentage of FY 2011 staffing level: 22%. 

Operating administration: Office of the Secretary of Transportation; 
Contract specialists for FY 2011: 11; 
Estimated attrition, targets, and gaps: 
Combined attrition FY 2012 and FY 2013: 4; 
FY 2013 staffing target: 16; 
Potential gap to fill to achieve FY 2013 staffing target: 9; 
Potential gap as percentage of FY 2011 staffing level: 82%. 

Operating administration: Maritime Administration; 
Contract specialists for FY 2011: 29; 
Estimated attrition, targets, and gaps: 
Combined attrition FY 2012 and FY 2013: 6; 
FY 2013 staffing target: 31; 
Potential gap to fill to achieve FY 2013 staffing target: 8; 
Potential gap as percentage of FY 2011 staffing level: 28%. 

Operating administration: Federal Transit Administration; 
Contract specialists for FY 2011: 13; 
Estimated attrition, targets, and gaps: 
Combined attrition FY 2012 and FY 2013: 4; 
FY 2013 staffing target: 14; 
Potential gap to fill to achieve FY 2013 staffing target: 5; 
Potential gap as percentage of FY 2011 staffing level: 38%. 

Operating administration: Research and Innovative Technology 
Administration; 
Contract specialists for FY 2011: 24; 
Estimated attrition, targets, and gaps: 
Combined attrition FY 2012 and FY 2013: 6; 
FY 2013 staffing target: 30; 
Potential gap to fill to achieve FY 2013 staffing target: 12; 
Potential gap as percentage of FY 2011 staffing level: 50%. 

Operating administration: National Highway Traffic Safety 
Administration; 
Contract specialists for FY 2011: 11; 
Estimated attrition, targets, and gaps: 
Combined attrition FY 2012 and FY 2013: 0; 
FY 2013 staffing target: 15; 
Potential gap to fill to achieve FY 2013 staffing target: 4; 
Potential gap as percentage of FY 2011 staffing level: 36%. 

Operating administration: Federal Railroad Administration; 
Contract specialists for FY 2011: 8; 
Estimated attrition, targets, and gaps: 
Combined attrition FY 2012 and FY 2013: 2; 
FY 2013 staffing target: 8; 
Potential gap to fill to achieve FY 2013 staffing target: 2; 
Potential gap as percentage of FY 2011 staffing level: 25%. 

Operating administration: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration; 
Contract specialists for FY 2011: 15; 
Estimated attrition, targets, and gaps: 
Combined attrition FY 2012 and FY 2013: 0; 
FY 2013 staffing target: 16; 
Potential gap to fill to achieve FY 2013 staffing target: 1; 
Potential gap as percentage of FY 2011 staffing level: 7%. 

Operating administration: Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety 
Administration; 
Contract specialists for FY 2011: 10; 
Estimated attrition, targets, and gaps: 
Combined attrition FY 2012 and FY 2013: 5; 
FY 2013 staffing target: 12; 
Potential gap to fill to achieve FY 2013 staffing target: 7; 
Potential gap as percentage of FY 2011 staffing level: 70%. 

Operating administration: Saint Lawrence Seaway Development 
Corporation; 
Contract specialists for FY 2011: 3; 
Estimated attrition, targets, and gaps: 
Combined attrition FY 2012 and FY 2013: 0; 
FY 2013 staffing target: 3; 
Potential gap to fill to achieve FY 2013 staffing target: 0; 
Potential gap as percentage of FY 2011 staffing level: 0%. 

Source: GAO analysis of DOT data. 

[End of table] 

We also found that the OAs did not use a consistent or well-documented 
approach to estimate attrition which could result in an under-or 
overstatement of the gap they would need to fill to achieve their 
staffing targets. For example, seven OAs estimated that fiscal year 
2012 and 2013 attrition would be lower than the attrition reported for 
fiscal year 2011. To illustrate, the Federal Highway Administration 
lost seven contract specialists in 2011, or 13 percent, but estimated 
future attrition at 5 percent a year. Similarly, the National Highway 
Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety 
Administration reported fiscal year 2011 attrition rates of 36 and 16 
percent respectively, but estimated no attrition for fiscal year 2012 
and 2013. In contrast, FAA estimated future attrition at 15 percent 
which is consistent with what it reported for fiscal year 2011. While 
there may be good reasons for estimating attrition based on 
information other than historical attrition, the Office of the Senior 
Procurement Executive did not provide guidance to ensure that each OA 
used a reasonable approach. 

Given the high demand for contract specialists across the federal 
government, staffing increases combined with attrition creates a 
potential gap that may be challenging for some OAs to address. For 
example, some OAs plan to hire entry-level staff, which will require 
investment in training and development to achieve certification 
requirements. As an added concern, one OA official stated that the 
September 2012 expiration of direct hire authority for acquisition 
positions will increase the amount of time it will take to hire a 
contract specialist from a few weeks to a few months. This authority 
allowed agencies who could demonstrate a shortage of highly qualified 
candidates for certain acquisition positions to streamline the 
application process to hire candidates directly and more quickly. 
[Footnote 14] 

FAA also identified staffing challenges for other segments of its 
acquisition workforce including program/project management and 
research and engineering. According to FAA's 2011 acquisition 
workforce plan, challenges with these segments are driven by the 
predicted growth in requirements combined with expected retirements 
and the difficulty in hiring qualified candidates. For example, FAA 
reported that 39 percent of its program/project managers are eligible 
to retire by 2015, and identified the need to develop new in-house 
program managers. Further, officials reported that entry-level hiring 
alone is not sufficient due to program complexity and the need for 
individuals with years of experience. According to FAA, these 
acquisition professionals must demonstrate considerable leadership, 
possess the expertise to manage the development of complex, large-
scale air traffic systems, and bring diverse stakeholders together. 
FAA officials also noted the ability to backfill employees lost to 
attrition is uncertain and that budget constraints have forced FAA to 
limit what hiring authority is available to the most critical 
positions. Officials noted that while acquisition positions are deemed 
critical, so too are air traffic controllers and other mission-
critical and safety-related positions. If FAA cannot attain 
appropriate numbers of personnel for the workforce, it plans to 
prioritize and shift workload and staffing to best meet priority 
needs, increase the workload for existing staff where possible, or 
supplement the workforce by using contractors. 

In addition, staffing challenges faced by DOT may be understated 
because some OAs constrained or revised their workforce estimates to 
reflect budget realities and did not fully take into account the 
people needed to do the work. For example, a Maritime Administration 
official explained that they originally estimated the need to increase 
the number of program/project managers from 6 in fiscal year 2011 to 
36 by the end of fiscal year 2013, but later adjusted the estimate to 
12 due to anticipated resource constraints. Similarly, an official 
from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration stated 
that they projected the need to increase the number of contract 
specialists from 10 in fiscal year 2011 to 12 in fiscal years 2012 and 
2013, but later revised their projected need to 10 because the request 
for additional staff was not approved. FAA officials also told us that 
managers validate the previous years' projections and adjust the 
estimates as they come closer to executing the plan to factor in what 
the budget will accommodate. Despite constrained budgets, OAs could 
benefit from having an informed understanding of the number of 
acquisition workforce personnel needed to fulfill their missions. For 
example, the Department of Defense requires the calculation of both 
unconstrained and constrained requirements, both of which should be 
used to prioritize decisions. 

Certification Shortfalls: 

Across the department, some OAs have not ensured that the acquisition 
workforce is in compliance with federal certification standards. 
According to OFPP, the quality and effectiveness of the federal 
acquisition process depends on the development of a capable and 
competent workforce and the Federal Acquisition Institute has 
developed certification standards which include a combination of 
education, training, and experience requirements. In accordance with 
these requirements, DOT has developed career guidance for contracting 
professionals, program/project managers, and contracting officer's 
representatives which outlines the general training and experience 
requirements for each profession. FAA also has career guidance and 
certification standards for these three professions, as well as 
integrated logistics support. In addition, FAA has developed 
competency models for systems engineering and test and evaluation 
professionals to serve as the basis for workforce development, and 
plans to develop certification standards for all of its acquisition 
disciplines in the future. 

Certification for Contract Specialists: 

DOT reported that 91 percent of its 463 contract specialists were 
certified in fiscal year 2011. Based on our analysis of DOT data, 
eight OAs reported contract specialist certification rates of 95 
percent or greater while several others reported much lower rates. For 
example, the Federal Transit Administration reported that 65 percent, 
or 8 of its 13 contract specialist were certified. The National 
Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that only 36 percent of 
its contract specialists (4 of 11) were certified. According to DOT's 
Acquisition Career Manager, the department should be aiming to have 
all of its contract specialists certified, but he and other officials 
stated that 100 percent certification is not feasible. For example, 
Level 1, or entry-level contract specialists, generally need to 
complete certain core contracting courses and have 1 year of 
contracting experience to be eligible for certification. Given 
attrition levels of about 15 percent across the department, a 
sustained focus on developing and certifying the contracting 
professionals is critical to improving and maintaining certification 
levels. 

Certification for Program/Project Managers: 

DOT reported that 58 percent of its 64 program/project managers were 
certified in fiscal year 2011. Program/project managers perform such 
duties as developing government requirements, defining measurable 
performance standards, and managing contractor activities to ensure 
that the intended outcomes are achieved. FAA, with 54 program/project 
managers reported that 29 were certified, for a certification rate of 
54 percent. The Maritime Administration and the Office of the 
Secretary both reported that 100 percent of their program/project 
managers were certified while the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials 
Safety Administration reported that it does not have any programs of 
the magnitude or complexity that require program/project manager 
certification, but that its two program/project managers are in the 
process of obtaining certification. 

Certification for Contracting Officer's Representatives: 

DOT reported that 47 percent of its 2,441 contracting officer's 
representatives were certified in fiscal year 2011 despite the federal 
requirement that they to be certified within 6 months of their date of 
appointment.[Footnote 15] Contracting officer's representatives are 
appointed by contracting officers to perform certain contract 
administration duties, including inspection and acceptance of supplies 
or services. Across the department, three OAs reported certification 
rates over 90 percent while the remaining reported certification rates 
ranging from 18 percent at FAA to 78 percent at the Saint Lawrence 
Seaway Development Corporation. Table 4 provides information on the 
number of contracting officer's representatives certified at each OA 
in fiscal year 2011. 

Table 4: Number of Contracting Officer's Representatives and Percent 
Certified in Fiscal Year 2011: 

Operating administration: Federal Aviation Administration; 
Number of Contracting Officer's Representatives: 1,320; 
Number certified: 238; 
Percent certified: 18%. 

Operating administration: Federal Highway Administration; 
Number of Contracting Officer's Representatives: 432; 
Number certified: 393; 
Percent certified: 91%. 

Operating administration: Office of the Secretary of Transportation; 
Number of Contracting Officer's Representatives: 93; 
Number certified: 65; 
Percent certified: 70%. 

Operating administration: Maritime Administration; 
Number of Contracting Officer's Representatives: 119; 
Number certified: 119; 
Percent certified: 100%. 

Operating administration: Federal Transit Administration; 
Number of Contracting Officer's Representatives: 67; 
Number certified: 37; 
Percent certified: 55%. 

Operating administration: Research and Innovative Technology 
Administration; 
Number of Contracting Officer's Representatives: 90; 
Number certified: 90; 
Percent certified: 100%. 

Operating administration: National Highway Traffic Safety 
Administration; 
Number of Contracting Officer's Representatives: 164; 
Number certified: 103; 
Percent certified: 63%. 

Operating administration: Federal Railroad Administration; 
Number of Contracting Officer's Representatives: 65; 
Number certified: 35; 
Percent certified: 54%. 

Operating administration: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration; 
Number of Contracting Officer's Representatives: 49; 
Number certified: 37; 
Percent certified: 75%. 

Operating administration: Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety 
Administration; 
Number of Contracting Officer's Representatives: 33; 
Number certified: 23; 
Percent certified: 70%. 

Operating administration: Saint Lawrence Seaway Development 
Corporation; 
Number of Contracting Officer's Representatives: 9; 
Number certified: 7; 
Percent certified: 78%. 

Operating administration: Total; 
Number of Contracting Officer's Representatives: 2,441; 
Number certified: 1,147; 
Percent certified: 47%. 

Source: DOT. 

[End of table] 

Although the data we obtained and reviewed were not sufficient to 
assess DOT's progress in improving certification rates over time, DOT 
reported that the number of people certified increased substantially 
between fiscal years 2010 and 2011 and that a focus on certification 
programs is central to DOT's strategy to strengthen the skills and 
capabilities of the acquisition workforce. FAA officials also stated 
that they have made a concerted effort to increase certification rates 
particularly for program/project managers and contracting officer's 
representatives. For example, FAA officials reported that as of the 
end of fiscal year 2012, 85 percent of program managers responsible 
for major programs were certified at the requisite level and that the 
percentage of contracting officer's representatives certified has 
improved to 49 percent. 

DOT Lacks the Strategic Focus and Oversight Needed for Effective 
Workforce Planning and Management: 

DOT lacks the strategic focus and oversight needed to ensure that the 
department can meet its acquisition workforce goals and that 
strategies to hire, develop, and retain acquisition professionals are 
implemented and sustained over time. Federal policy requires agencies 
to conduct strategic planning to identify short-and long-term agency 
needs. This includes recruitment and retention strategies for 
obtaining the acquisition workforce resources and skills required to 
meet future agency mission needs. GAO has identified leading practices 
agencies should follow when developing workforce plans which include 
developing a coordinated planning process to involve stakeholders; 
analyzing workforce gaps to inform strategic planning and budget 
formulation; and developing strategies to monitor and evaluate 
progress.[Footnote 16] The Office of the Senior Procurement Executive 
has not developed a coordinated planning process and does not use the 
acquisition workforce data reported to OFPP for acquisition workforce 
planning and management. The Office of the Senior Procurement 
Executive has recently taken steps to align its workforce plans with 
the department's strategic goals, but given challenges with 
maintaining reliable data, lacks a sound baseline for assessing 
progress toward reaching these goals or for making a business case for 
directing resources or management attention to OAs, which may face the 
greatest workforce challenges. Further, the Office of the Senior 
Procurement Executive has only recently identified a limited set of 
performance metrics to assess progress toward reaching acquisition 
workforce human capital goals. By contrast, we found that only FAA has 
a strategic process to align the organization's human capital program 
with its current and emerging missions, and to develop long-term 
strategies for acquiring, developing, and retaining the staff needed 
to perform agency missions. Different approaches may be appropriate, 
but without strategic workforce planning, agencies risk not meeting 
mission requirements and are unable to develop strategies for 
achieving long-term goals. We also found that the Office of the Senior 
Procurement Executive has not maintained training and certification 
data for its acquisition workforce in accordance with federal 
requirements, but has efforts under way to improve compliance. 

DOT Has Not Determined Its Data Needs or Developed a Coordinated 
Acquisition Workforce Planning Process: 

The Office of the Senior Procurement Executive collects acquisition 
workforce data for reporting purposes, but has not determined its own 
data needs or developed a coordinated planning process to fully 
involve stakeholders including human capital officials and procurement 
and program officials at the OAs. Our prior work has shown that 
strategic workforce planning is most likely to succeed if top 
management officials set the overall goals and direction of the effort 
and involve stakeholders in developing and implementing strategies to 
achieve the goals. For example, top leadership that is engaged in 
strategic workforce planning can provide organizational vision, help 
provide stability as the workforce plan is being developed and 
implemented, and create support within the agency to ensure that 
workforce strategies to hire, develop, and retain acquisition 
professionals are implemented and sustained over time. By contrast, 
the Office of the Senior Procurement Executive has not established 
specific responsibilities for itself or the OAs for maintaining the 
data reported to OFPP, or for using the data for management purposes. 
For example, officials from the Office of the Senior Procurement 
Executive told us that they have not used the workforce data reported 
to OFPP to manage the workforce, determined other information that 
would be useful for planning and oversight, or provided oversight 
through ongoing monitoring of workforce data. However, the Acquisition 
Career Manager retained the data for the 2012 plan and indicated that 
he intends to retain and review data compiled for future plans. 

Officials from some of the five OAs we met with reported that they do 
not use DOT's annual strategic planning effort for long-term planning 
purposes. FAA, which accounted for more than half of the 3,146 
acquisition workforce members reported in DOT's 2012 plan, issues its 
own annual acquisition workforce plan, which is tailored to meet its 
workforce management priorities. In contrast with FAA, some OA 
officials told us that their acquisition workload and workforce is 
generally stable. For example, officials from the Federal Transit 
Administration and the Maritime Administration, which reported 80 and 
155 acquisition workforce members in fiscal year 2011, respectively, 
stated that forecasting workforce needs is straightforward due to a 
stable workload and set number of authorized positions. Additionally, 
some OA officials stated that DOT's workforce planning efforts are 
limited because the reporting instructions are not clear and the data 
requested varies from year to year. 

Our prior work has also shown the importance of collaboration between 
human capital and acquisition agency leaders and managers to develop 
acquisition workforce plans. While some OAs reported that they 
consulted with human resources officials to obtain information such as 
retirement eligibility to prepare their submissions, we found that 
DOT's Chief Human Capital Officer and Office of Human Resources have 
had a limited role in strategic planning for the acquisition 
workforce. According to a senior human resources official, his office 
took the lead in preparing DOTs 2010 workforce plan, but had very 
limited involvement in preparing the plans for 2011 and 2012. 

Officials from the Office of the Senior Procurement Executive cited 
several reasons why the office does not direct the department's 
acquisition workforce planning efforts. Specifically, officials told 
us that the OAs are best suited to manage the workforce given the 
decentralized nature of the department and the wide range of missions 
performed by the OAs. However, officials stated that their capacity to 
direct planning efforts is limited because the OAs have their own 
budget authorities and that the office does not have the staff or 
resources needed to perform oversight of strategic planning efforts. 
For example, as of October 2012, the Office of the Senior Procurement 
Executive had just two staff supporting the department's acquisition 
workforce program on a part-time basis. In addition, the office's 
limited focus on acquisition workforce issues is also due in part to 
other acquisition priorities and challenges facing the office. The 
current Senior Procurement Executive and Acquisition Career Manager 
assumed their positions in late 2010 after a period of longstanding 
vacancies and have been focusing on addressing significant weaknesses 
in the department's acquisition function identified by the DOT 
Inspector General.[Footnote 17] As of December 2012, the Inspector 
General had closed 14 of the 16 recommendations it made to address 
weaknesses it identified in the Office of the Secretary's acquisition 
function based on actions taken by the Senior Procurement Executive in 
2011 and 2012. 

According to Office of the Senior Procurement Executive officials, 
their role is to provide a focal point for coordination among the OAs, 
rather than providing direction and support for acquisition workforce 
planning efforts. For example, in 2009, the Senior Procurement 
Executive chartered the Strategic Acquisition Council to provide a 
forum for senior DOT acquisition leaders from each of the OAs to 
address issues affecting the DOT procurement community, share best 
practices, and ensure a consistent focus on acquisition improvement 
throughout the department. The Senior Procurement Executive also 
chartered the Acquisition Workforce Working Group with the goals of 
performing comprehensive workforce planning for DOT and developing 
tools, guidance, and suggestions for recruitment and retention. To 
date, the group has focused on outreach initiatives to publicize 
contracting career opportunities, and organized a conference in April 
2012 to share knowledge and provide networking opportunities among 
contract specialists. 

The Acquisition Career Manager also administers the department's 
certification program and aims to leverage limited training resources 
by identifying and informing the OAs of free and low-cost training 
opportunities across the government. For example, the Acquisition 
Career Manager is responsible for approving all certifications and 
views this as the department's means of providing oversight that the 
OAs are in compliance with DOT and federal certification requirements. 
According to the Acquisition Career Manager, the department has also 
played a role in bringing together individual OAs with other federal 
partners to support the development of acquisition workforce training 
programs. For example, the Federal Highway Administration developed 
and implemented a 40-hour training course for contracting officer's 
representatives through collaboration with the Federal Acquisition 
Institute and the Department of Homeland Security. According to 
officials, the Acquisition Career Manager will continue to work with 
the Federal Highway Administration to leverage this course to create a 
low cost, and customizable training course available across the 
department. 

The Office of the Senior Procurement Executive Has Taken Steps to 
Align Its Workforce Plans with Strategic Goals, but Faces Challenges 
to Assess Progress: 

The Office of the Senior Procurement Executive has recently taken 
steps to align its workforce plans with the department's strategic 
goals, but given challenges with maintaining reliable data, lacks a 
sound baseline for assessing progress toward reaching these goals or 
for making a business case for directing resources or management 
attention to OAs which may face the greatest workforce risks. 
According to leading practices identified in our prior work, agencies 
need to determine the occupations, skills, and competencies that are 
critical to achieving their missions and goals, as well as to identify 
any gaps between their current workforce and the workforce they will 
need in the future. Further, workforce planning that is linked to an 
agency's strategic goals and budget formulation allows agencies to 
assess the extent to which the workforce contributes to achieving 
overarching mission needs and ensure that their annual budget requests 
include adequate funds to implement their human capital strategies, 
such as recruitment or retention bonuses, awards, training, student 
loan repayments, and tuition assistance. 

In October 2012, the Senior Procurement Executive issued a strategic 
plan for fiscal years 2013 through 2016 which identifies acquisition 
workforce development as one of four strategic goals. The strategies 
to achieve the acquisition workforce goal focus on efforts to promote 
existing certification programs, leverage training resources, and make 
DOT a more attractive workplace for acquisition workforce 
professionals. One of the indicators intended to measure progress is 
the percentage of the acquisition workforce certified. By 2016, the 
department aims to achieve certification rates of 85 percent for 
contract specialists and 75 percent for program/project managers and 
contracting officer's representatives. However, without a reliable 
baseline, the Senior Procurement Executive has no basis for measuring 
progress. 

The Office of the Secretary's fiscal year 2011 and 2012 budget 
proposals requested $7.6 million for acquisition workforce development 
with some of the funds to be transferred to the OAs. According to both 
proposals, funds would be used to increase acquisition workforce 
capacity through training, recruitment, retention, and hiring 
additional members of the acquisition workforce. The fiscal year 2012 
proposal also specified that funds would be used for business process 
re-engineering, organizational development, and contractor support 
costs to collect acquisition workforce data. According to officials, 
the specific plans were abandoned when funding for these proposals was 
not approved. Because the Office of the Senior Procurement Executive 
has not collected and maintained reliable workforce data, the 
department lacks the basis needed to make informed decisions to 
justify agency resource needs. For fiscal year 2013, the Office of the 
Secretary requested about $700,000 to strengthen the acquisition 
workforce but did not propose transferring funds to the OAs. The 
proposal specified three key areas: contractor support costs to 
collect data and provide training; business process re-engineering; 
and innovative acquisition approaches. 

DOT Has Not Identified Workforce Development Strategies with Metrics 
to Assess Progress: 

DOT's workforce plans do not identify clear workforce development 
strategies or establish metrics to assess progress toward reaching 
acquisition workforce human capital goals. Once agencies have 
identified gaps, our prior work has found that they need to develop 
human capital strategies--the programs, policies, and processes that 
agencies use to build and manage their workforces--to close these 
gaps. These strategies, tailored to the agencies' unique needs, may 
include strategies for hiring, training, staff development, succession 
planning, performance management, and the use of human capital 
flexibilities, among other things. While the OAs have identified and 
utilized some acquisition workforce development strategies such 
recruiting entry-level hires, they have generally not been linked to 
specific recruitment, retention, and certification goals. For example, 
one of the strategies identified in DOT's 2010 acquisition human 
capital plan was to develop a rotational exchange program within the 
department to improve retention by providing professional development 
opportunities for the acquisition workforce. In November 2010, the 
Office of the Senior Procurement Executive established a rotational 
exchange program within the department, but the department's plan did 
not identify goals or metrics such as the desired number of exchanges. 
According to an official, the program had facilitated one exchange as 
of July 2012. Similarly, DOT's 2012 workforce plan identified the 
agency's goals for managing and strengthening the acquisition 
workforce but did not include any specific metrics to assess progress. 
These goals include a continued focus on certification programs, staff 
development and retention, and communication and knowledge sharing. 

FAA Has Developed a Strategic Acquisition Workforce Planning Process 
but DOT's Inspector General Identified Challenges: 

In contrast with DOT's other OAs, FAA operates under its own 
acquisition authority and has its own workforce planning process and 
oversight function that generally includes the key elements of leading 
practices for workforce planning. For example, FAA has taken steps to 
identify its acquisition workforce needs and incorporate them into 
planning decisions and established the Acquisition Workforce Council, 
an executive-level group that provides strategic leadership and 
oversight for acquisition workforce planning and management. FAA has 
since issued acquisition workforce plans in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 
with planning data through 2017. As a basis for its planning efforts, 
FAA took steps to identify the acquisition workforce and develop 
career competencies and certification requirements. FAA also developed 
a model to estimate staffing requirements for each year which is 
validated by program officials knowledgeable of program needs. FAA's 
workforce plans include metrics, such as the percentage of acquisition 
workforce positions filled against forecasted needs and the average 
time to fill positions, and provides monthly reports on staffing gains 
and losses to the workforce council. Despite FAA being further along 
than DOT's other OAs in terms of developing the capacity and framework 
needed for effective planning, the DOT Inspector General identified 
several challenges FAA has faced in collecting accurate data on 
members of its acquisition workforce and addressing workforce gaps and 
made a series of recommendations to improve the programs, policies, 
and practices needed to ensure an adequate and effective acquisition 
workforce.[Footnote 18] For example, the FAA reported that it met its 
fiscal year 2009 workforce targets while the Inspector General 
concluded that the FAA, by over-hiring in some segments of the 
acquisition workforce and under-hiring in others, had not adhered to 
its workforce plans. As of December 2012, the Inspector General had 
closed 8 of the 11 recommendations based on FAA actions. 

DOT Has Not Maintained Training and Certification Data in Accordance 
with Federal Policy, but Has Efforts Under Way to Improve Compliance: 

DOT policy requires the OAs to maintain current and complete records 
on acquisition workforce training and certification in accordance with 
OFPP requirements, but has only recently begun to provide oversight to 
improve compliance. According to OFPP requirements, agencies are to 
maintain complete, current records on education, training, experience, 
and certification for all acquisition workforce members in a 
government-wide information management system. In 2011, the Federal 
Acquisition Institute Training Application System (FAITAS) replaced 
the Acquisition Career Management Information System as the repository 
of such information. According to FAA officials, FAA is not subject to 
this requirement and has its own process for tracking comparable data. 

The Acquisition Career Manager has efforts under way to improve OA 
compliance with the requirement to record training and certification 
data in FAITAS, but current data are not complete. For example, DOT 
reported that 1,093 acquisition workforce professionals were certified 
in fiscal year 2011, but as of September 2012, only 472 were 
registered in the system. Of those, 398 were contracting officer's 
representatives, fewer than half of the 909 contracting officer's 
representatives that DOT reported as certified in fiscal year 2011, 
despite the OFPP requirement that all be entered in the FAITAS system 
no later than February 15, 2012. The Acquisition Career Manager stated 
that the data migration from the Acquisition Career Management 
Information System to FAITAS did not go smoothly and that his office 
has begun to manually reconcile data in the system with data that the 
OAs are required by DOT policy to maintain. The Acquisition Career 
Manager also stated that his office will not approve a certification 
request unless the individual is registered in FAITAS. While this is a 
step in the right direction, this level of oversight is not sufficient 
as it only maintains management control over those who submit 
certifications for approval, but not those who should be certified, 
but are not. For example, several OAs were unable to provide us with 
the number of CORs in the workforce or the number certified for fiscal 
years 2009 through 2011. As a result of this lack of oversight, the 
department has no way of knowing whether the workforce meets the 
minimum requirements needed to meet the department's acquisition 
missions. 

Conclusions: 

DOT relies on its acquisition workforce to negotiate and administer 
contracts and manage large-scale acquisition programs, but lacks the 
reliable data and strategic focus needed to fully understand its 
workforce needs over time and to ensure that the department can hire, 
develop, and retain the acquisition professionals needed to perform 
the agency's current and future missions. This may put the 
department's acquisition missions at risk. While DOT has submitted 
annual acquisition workforce plans to OFPP, the Office of the Senior 
Procurement Executive has not maintained past data or determined what 
data it needs for management purposes. Further, the Office of the 
Senior Procurement Executive relies on the OAs to collect and compile 
acquisition workforce data and conduct strategic planning but has not 
provided guidance on how to collect and report workforce data, 
established internal controls to ensure that data provided are 
accurate and complete, or established specific responsibilities for 
maintaining the data, or for using it for management purposes. Until 
the Office of the Senior Procurement Executive determines what data 
are needed, and assesses resources necessary for performing oversight, 
input into strategic plans will be inconsistent and ultimately its 
utility will be diminished which limits the department's ability to 
plan for and address workforce challenges. While efforts are under way 
to improve oversight of the agency's certification program, oversight 
is needed to ensure OA compliance with the requirement to record 
training and certification data in FAITAS. To develop a comprehensive 
strategic acquisition workforce planning framework, DOT needs to 
incorporate key elements of effective planning, such as fully 
involving the Chief Human Capital Officer and other stakeholders, 
analyzing workforce gaps and developing strategies to address them, 
and monitoring and assessing progress over time. Until DOT establishes 
such a framework, it will not have a sound basis to identify or 
justify resources needed to fully address its short-and long-term 
workforce needs. This exposes the department to substantial risk that 
the workforce does not have the capacity or skills needed to 
effectively manage the department's current and future acquisition 
missions. 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

To help improve DOT's ability to effectively address workforce needs, 
we recommend that the Secretary of Transportation take the following 
five actions: 

* Direct the Senior Procurement Executive to define data the 
department needs to meet OFPP and DOT workforce planning and oversight 
requirements; 

* Provide standards for internal controls or other guidance to ensure 
the OAs collect, report, and maintain consistent and reliable data for 
workforce planning and in FAITAS; 

* Establish specific responsibilities for the Office of the Senior 
Procurement Executive and the OAs to maintain workforce data, develop 
strategies and metrics, and monitor progress toward addressing 
workforce gaps and certification deficiencies; 

* Assess whether the Office of the Senior Procurement Executive has 
sufficient resources to effectively oversee the acquisition workforce; 
and: 

* Direct the Senior Procurement Executive and Chief Human Capital 
Officer to establish a coordinated process for future acquisition 
workforce planning. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

We provided a draft of this report to DOT for its review and comment. 
DOT provided written comments which are reprinted in appendix II, as 
well as technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate. DOT 
generally agreed with our recommendations and described actions under 
way or planned to address them. DOT also expressed concern, however, 
that the draft report did not clearly convey the current status of its 
acquisition workforce efforts and that much of the information that 
the draft report relied upon to formulate its findings was drawn from 
the period when there was considerable instability at multiple 
management levels, including the Office of the Senior Procurement 
Executive. 

We disagree that our findings do not reflect the current state at the 
department. Our findings were largely based on the data and approach 
that DOT used to prepare the acquisition workforce plan that it 
submitted to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in April 2012. 
Specifically, we found that the operating administrations were not 
consistent in their approach to reporting workforce data due in part 
to a lack of guidance, oversight, and internal controls at the 
department level. DOT agreed in its comments with the need to provide 
additional guidance to the operating administrations and stated that 
collaborative efforts are currently underway between the Office of the 
Senior Procurement Executive and the Chief Human Capital Officer to 
better ensure the consistency and reliability of the department's 
acquisition workforce data. If implemented, these steps could help the 
department establish a more reliable baseline for monitoring and 
assessing changes in the size and certification rates of the 
acquisition workforce over time. However, it is premature to determine 
the effectiveness of the planned actions in addressing the acquisition 
workforce challenges noted in this report. Continued progress and 
successful implementation of these recent efforts will require 
sustained leadership and management attention. 

We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional 
committees, as well as the Secretary of Transportation, and the 
Director, Office of Management and Budget. In addition, this report 
will be made available at no charge on the GAO website at [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov]. 

Please contact me at (202) 512-4841 or martinb@gao.gov if you or your 
staff have any questions concerning this report. Contact points for 
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found 
on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major 
contributions to this report are listed in appendix III. 

Signed by: 

Belva M. Martin: 
Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

This report focuses on the Department of Transportation's (DOT) 
efforts to identify and address its acquisition workforce needs 
through its acquisition workforce planning efforts for 2010, 2011, and 
2012. While we obtained data from the 11 DOT operating administrations 
(OA) with procurement spending in fiscal year 2011, we focused our 
review on the five which accounted for 92 percent of the department's 
fiscal year 2011 procurement spending based on data reported in the 
Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation. Our report assessed: 
(1) the efforts of the Office of the Secretary of Transportation and 
DOT's OAs to identify acquisition workforce needs, and (2) the Office 
of the Secretary's role in providing oversight and support for 
acquisition workforce planning and management. For the purposes of 
this report, we focused on the Office of the Senior Procurement 
Executive, the office within Office of the Secretary with primary 
responsibility for the acquisition workforce planning and management. 

To assess the efforts of the Office of the Senior Procurement 
Executive and DOT's OAs to identify acquisition workforce staffing and 
training needs, we reviewed the acquisition workforce plans that DOT 
submitted to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) for 2010, 
2011, and 2012 and took steps to assess the reliability of the data 
reported. We also interviewed officials from the Office of the Senior 
Procurement Executive and Office of Human Resources to discuss how the 
plans were compiled, data sources used, and steps taken to verify the 
accuracy and completeness of the data. We also collected acquisition 
workforce data from the 11 OAs included in DOT's human capital plans 
and interviewed officials from the five OAs with the highest 
procurement spending in fiscal year 2011 to discuss the data sources 
and methods used to track data on the acquisition workforce such as 
attrition, staffing needs, and certification levels. The data we 
reviewed included information on the size of the acquisition workforce 
and certification rates for fiscal years 2009, 2010, and 2011, as well 
as hiring targets, and estimated attrition through fiscal year 2013. 

To assess the reliability of the aggregate data reported to OFPP, we 
reviewed the data presented in DOT's plans for readily apparent 
errors, omissions, and logical consistency. We also requested the 
underlying data by OA that the Office of the Senior Procurement 
Executive used to prepare the plans; however, officials were only able 
to provide us with the underlying data used to prepare the 2012 plan. 
Since DOT was not able to provide the underlying data used to prepare 
the 2010 and 2011 plans, we attempted to obtain the data directly from 
the OAs. In response to our initial data requests to the OAs, we 
received a variety of different documents including resource charts 
and succession plans. Because the data from the OAs was not provided 
in a consistent format and was not always complete, we prepared and 
distributed a data collection instrument to each of the OAs. We pre-
populated the instrument based on data the OAs provided, and asked the 
OAs to validate the data, correct errors, or provide missing data. In 
some cases, the underlying data was not available from the OAs. As a 
result, we were unable to independently verify the accuracy and 
completeness of the data DOT reported to OFPP in 2010 and 2011. We 
also identified discrepancies that call into question the reliability 
of the data reported to OFPP. For example, DOT's 2010 plan includes 
conflicting information on the size of the acquisition workforce for 
fiscal year 2009. DOT officials could not explain the discrepancy. As 
a result of these limitations, we concluded that the aggregate data 
DOT reported in its plans was not sufficiently accurate or complete 
for assessing changes in the size of the acquisition workforce or 
certification rates over time. 

To assess the reliability of the data DOT used to prepare its 2012 
plan, we compared the OA-level data we received from the Office of the 
Senior Procurement Executive with data we received from the OAs. We 
compared the data and interviewed OA officials regarding the sources 
and methods they used to compile the data. We identified 
inconsistencies in how the data were reported by the OAs. These 
inconsistencies affect the reliability of the department's aggregate 
data, but we determined that the OA-level data were sufficiently 
reliable to make qualitative observations about staffing and 
certification challenges at the individual OAs. 

To determine the extent to which the Office of the Senior Procurement 
Executive has provided support and oversight for acquisition workforce 
planning and management, we reviewed relevant OFPP policy and 
guidance, as well as DOT policy, guidance, and acquisition workforce 
plans for 2010, 2011, and 2012. We interviewed DOT procurement and 
human resources officials to obtain their views on their roles and 
responsibilities. We also reviewed budget and strategic planning 
documents from the Office of the Secretary and the Office of the 
Senior Procurement Executive and interviewed officials from the five 
OAs with the greatest fiscal year 2011 procurement spending to discuss 
their approaches to strategic acquisition workforce planning and to 
obtain their views about the level of support and oversight from the 
Office of the Senior Procurement Executive. Based on this review, we 
identified Senior Procurement Executive responsibilities to support 
and oversee acquisition workforce planning and management and 
determined the extent to which these functions are performed. We 
compared Office of the Senior Procurement Executive strategic 
workforce planning efforts to leading practices for workforce planning 
identified by GAO and others. We also reviewed the Federal Aviation 
Administration's acquisition workforce plans for 2009, 2010, 2011, and 
2012 and interviewed officials to discuss their approach workforce 
planning. 

We conducted this performance audit from March 2012 to January 2013 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Transportation: 

U.S. Department of Transportation: 
Office of the Secretary of Transportation: 
Assistant Secretary for Administration:         
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE: 
Washington, DC 20590: 
        
January 3, 2013: 

Ms. Belva Martin: 
Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, NW: 
Washington, DC 20458: 

Dear Ms. Martin: 

The Office of the Senior Procurement Executive (OSPE) has emerged from 
a period of turmoil with strong leadership, a clear vision, and the 
management focus needed to ensure that the Department's acquisition 
functions, including its acquisition workforce, are sound, effective, 
and up to the challenges posed by operating efficiently in a resource 
constrained environment. Unfortunately, much of the information the 
GAO draft report relied upon to formulate its findings was drawn from 
the period where there was considerable instability at multiple 
management levels, including the Senior Procurement Executive and at 
the line supervisor level within OSPE. Over the last 3 years, 
leadership has been stabilized; a strong Senior Procurement Executive 
has been in place who focused on building an effective management 
team, along with the systems, processes and communications necessary 
to build a premier procurement organization. This progress is 
exemplified by the Department's actions to complete, to the Office of 
Inspector General's satisfaction, action on 14 of the 16 
recommendations from its 2011 report on OSPE, (with the two remaining 
recommendations being longer term actions). 

Capabilities in Place to Effectively Address Acquisition Workforce 
Issues: 

With a new leadership and management cadre in place, OSPE has been 
working to ensure that systems and processes are in place to 
effectively monitor and manage the Department's acquisition workforce. 
The Senior Procurement Executive has now been in place for 2 years and 
has assembled a knowledgeable and capable management team. By working 
increasingly with the acquisition community across the Department, 
through means such as the Strategic Acquisition Counsel, OSPE has been 
building a more extensive and collaborative capability to work 
consistently across the operating administrations. 

The Department of Transportation's operating administrations are in 
the best position to manage workforce planning and development for the 
broad range of practitioners in their acquisition workforces, within 
the context of Governmentwide and departmental requirements, as 
appropriate. With their primary responsibility for conducting and 
managing all aspects of acquisition, including their workforces, the 
operating administrations are best equipped to conduct workforce 
planning activities, ensure the participation of their senior 
leadership teams, and focus on individual needs. For context, it is 
important to recognize that the mission of OSPE is to facilitate the 
accomplishment of DOT's mission by providing effective, ethical, state-
of-the-art business policies, practices, and services in acquisition 
and grants management; and, to carry out the statutory and regulatory 
responsibilities of the Chief Acquisition Officer and the Senior 
Procurement Executive (SPE). Although the OSPE once had a staff 
dedicated to specific procurement oversight activities, that staff was 
eliminated and the activity terminated in response to Congress in the 
late 1990's.[Footnote 1] During that same period, FAA received 
extensive procurement autonomy as a result of 49 U.S.C. 106, which 
made the FAA Administrator the final authority responsible for all 
matters related to FAA acquisitions and FAA personnel. 

The role of OSPE with regard to the acquisition workforce is to 
provide consistent acquisition policy and developing and maintaining 
an acquisition workforce career development program and providing 
training to the DOT acquisition workforce on current policy issues. 
OSPE is focused on providing a broad view of the Department's 
acquisition workforce, providing broad policy guidance intended to 
effectively implement government wide acquisition workforce 
requirements, and facilitating information sharing across operating 
administrations and with other agencies. With regard to workforce 
planning, OSPE's role is to work with the operating administrations to 
make certain that guidance and requirements are applied and considered 
in a manner that is consistent throughout the Department. As a result 
of the types of issues that have occurred in the past, as highlighted 
in the GAO draft report, OSPE has set about strengthening its 
processes to better ensure consistent interpretation of requirements 
and consideration of data calls. 

Strategic Plan Enumerates Acquisition Workforce Focus: 

In the OSPE Strategic Plan for the period covering fiscal year (FY) 
2013—2016, issued on October 1, 2012, the office identified specific 
strategic goals relating to the Department's Acquisition workforce. 
These include (1) developing and maintaining workforce policies 
consistent with Governmentwide requirements; (2) managing acquisition 
certification programs and participating on Governmentwide working 
groups to further improve certification programs; (3) leveraging 
training resources to maximize learning opportunities for the 
acquisition workforce; and (4) enhancing the acquisition community, 
sharing accomplishments and providing opportunities for professional 
development. 

The strategic plan makes clear that OSPE will provide the leadership 
necessary for developing policies and guidance in compliance with 
Federal certification standards. Through its monitoring and 
interactions with the operating administrations, OSPE will ensure that 
the acquisition workforce has the skills necessary to meet existing 
and future challenges. Finally, the strategic plan offers 5 specific 
metrics that will help us track progress on the goals established in 
the plan. 

OSPE Working to Provide Consistent Acquisition Workforce Data: 

OSPE and the Chief Human Capital Officer (CHCO) have multiple efforts 
underway internally, across the Department, and in concert with OFPP 
to provide more consistent departmentwide data on acquisition 
workforces. While workforce planning efforts are susceptible to 
numerous analytical challenges, and the Department faces the same 
challenges confronting all government agencies in obtaining, training 
and maintaining an adequate acquisition workforce, we are working to 
provide high quality, comparable data for workforce planning across 
the Department. Specifically, the OSPE is establishing metrics for 
certification rates across all Federal Acquisition Certification (FAC) 
Programs. Further, in anticipation of the FY 13 Acquisition Human 
capita! Plan annual report data call, OSPE is jointly working with the 
CHCO and the operating administrations to provide more specific 
guidance intended to yield data that is consistent across the 
operating administrations. This joint OSPE/CHCO activity is focused 
heavily upon identifying data needs and sources/systems to support 
workforce planning and oversight data requirements. In addition, the 
CHCO has taken a leadership role In monitoring and managing employee 
sentiment and engagement across the acquisition workforce through the 
Employee Viewpoint Survey. 

Consistent with DOT policy, OSPE has traditionally relied upon the 
OA's to collect and report workforce data. DOT policy has prescribed 
that OA's collect and maintain records, and report data in the 
Acquisition Career Management Information System (ACMIS) and now 
federal Acquisition Institute Training Application System (FAITAS). 
OSPE is also exploring the potential for utilizing the enhanced data 
capabilities of FAITAS to Improve OA management of acquisition 
workforce data and make it more consistent across organizations. The 
OSPE currently requires all FAC applications to be registered In 
FAITAS prior to certification. This will help with data quality over 
time. In concert with this ongoing registration, the OSPE is working 
on a data reconciliation project with the OA's to validate FAITAS data 
for older records; and the deployment of on-line certification 
programs through FAITAS. 

in collaboration with the CHCO, the OSPE is reviewing the OFPP format 
for future Acquisition Human Capital Plans and developing additional 
guidance in an effort to gain consistent data from across the 
Department. This additional guidance will also contain instructions 
for the operating administrations to coordinate with each of their 
individual HR communities to verify the accuracy of data, to the 
extent possible, and to document the assumptions built into reported 
data. Specifically, this guidance will require submission of future OA 
reports to be submitted under the tri-lateral signature of the OA, CAO 
and CHCO. 

Conclusion: 

In summary, the OSPE has the framework in place to effectively monitor 
and develop its acquisition workforce, including strong leadership, 
necessary goals, policies and procedures, and useful performance 
metrics. We recognize the challenges we have faced as a result of past 
issues and perhaps because of them we are in a stronger position to 
face the challenges of the future. So while the draft report may focus 
on data and coordination issues that have challenged us in the past, 
we do not agree that its title or the primary findings convey a clear 
sense of the current status or future conduct of our acquisition 
workforce efforts. Nonetheless, we do generally agree with the need to 
better ensure that data calls pertaining to the acquisition workforce 
receive a consistent response across the organization, that there is 
strong and effective communication among the Senior Procurement 
Executive and the Chief Human Capital Officer, and that we do 
everything possible to ensure the OSPE has sufficient resources to 
fulfill its role in the Department. 

We appreciate this opportunity to comment on the GAO draft report. 
Please contact Martin Gertel, Director of Audit Relations, with any 
questions or if we may be of further assistance. 

Signed by: 

Brodi Fontenot: 

Footnote: 

[1] See House Report 105-648, Department of Transportation and Related 
Agendas Appropriations Bill, 1998, 1999. 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Belva Martin, (202) 512-4841, martinb@gao.gov: 

Staff Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the contact named above, W. William Russell, Assistant 
Director; MacKenzie Cooper; Danielle Greene; Julia Kennon; Jean K. 
Lee; Steven Lozano; Angie Nichols-Friedman; Carol Petersen; and Marie 
Ahearn also made key contributions to the report. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] GAO, High Risk Series: An Update, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-278] (Washington, D.C.: February 
2011). 

[2] Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, Top 
Management Challenges for Fiscal Year 2012, Report Number PT-2012-006, 
November 15, 2011; Department of Transportation Office of Inspector 
General, FAA Policies and Plans are Insufficient to Ensure an Adequate 
and Effective Acquisition Workforce, Report Number ZA-2011-148, August 
2011. 

[3] S. Rep. No. 112-83, at 9 (2011), accompanying Transportation and 
Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations 
Bill, 2012. 

[4] GAO, Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective Strategic 
Workforce Planning, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-39] 
(Washington, D.C.: Dec. 11, 2003); Workforce Planning: Interior, EPA, 
and the Forest Service Should Strengthen Linkages to Their Strategic 
Plans and Improve Evaluation, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-413] (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 31, 
2010); and Personnel Management in Agencies, 5 C.F.R. Part 250. 

[5] Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA) (10 U.S.C. 
§§ 1741-46) and the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act, as 
amended (41 U.S.C. § 1703). 

[6] In 2011, the Federal Acquisition Institute Training Application 
System replaced the Acquisition Career Management System (ACMIS) as 
the government-wide repository for acquisition workforce data. In July 
2011, the U.S. General Services Administration Office of Inspector 
General reported that ACMIS did not provide useful management 
information and exhibited poor data reliability and system 
functionality. U.S. General Services Administration, Office of 
Inspector General, Review of the Federal Acquisition Career Management 
Information System, Report Number A090023/O/A/F11006, July 20, 2011. 

[7] OFPP Policy Letter 05-01, Developing and Managing the Acquisition 
Workforce (Apr. 15, 2005), which applies to all executive agencies, 
except those subject to the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement 
Act, which provides requirements for the Department of Defense 
acquisition workforce. 

[8] Office of Management and Budget Memorandum, The Federal 
Acquisition Certification in Contracting Program (Washington, D.C.: 
Jan. 20, 2006); Office of Federal Procurement Policy Memorandum, The 
Federal Acquisition Certification for Contracting Officer Technical 
Representatives (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 26, 2007); Office of Federal 
Procurement Policy Memorandum, The Federal Acquisition Certification 
for Program and Project Managers (Washington, D.C., Apr. 25, 2007). 
Office of Federal Procurement Policy Memorandum, Revisions to the 
Federal Acquisition Certification for Contracting Officer's 
Representatives (Sept. 6, 2011), effective January 1, 2012, revised 
and replaced the former 2007 OFPP Memorandum for contracting officer 
technical representatives. 

[9] Specifically, the requirement is for civilian agencies covered by 
the Chief Financial Officer's Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-576, 
codified at 31 U.S.C. § 901, which includes the Department of 
Transportation. 

[10] FAA sought statutory exemption from various statutes that govern 
federal procurement practices and personnel management, maintaining 
that these requirements contributed to some of its cost, schedule, and 
performance problems in the 1980s and early 1990s. Congress enacted 
legislation in 1995 that exempted FAA from key federal procurement 
statutes and the Federal Acquisition Regulation and directed FAA to 
develop a new acquisition management system. FAA issued its new 
acquisition process--the Acquisition Management System--in 1996. 

[11] Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, 
Weaknesses in the Office of the Secretary's Acquisition Function Limit 
Its Capacity to Support DOT's Mission, Report Number ZA-2011-119, May 
2011. 

[12] GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1] 
(Washington, D.C.: November 1999). 

[13] The Office of Personnel Management identifies those federal 
employees in the General Schedule Contracting series (GS-1102) as 
contract specialists. Contracting officers are federal employees with 
the authority to bind the government by signing a contract. Federal 
Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 2.101. This authority is delegated to 
them through "warrants" issued by the head of their contracting 
activity. For the purposes of its Acquisition Human Capital Plans, DOT 
tracks "contract specialists" and "contracting officers outside of the 
1102 contracting series" separately. For the purposes of this report, 
we refer to "contracting officers outside of the 1102 contracting 
series" as contracting officers. 

[14] National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004, Pub. L. 
No. 108-136 § 1413, as amended by the National Defense Authorization 
Act for Fiscal Year 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-181 § 853. 

[15] The certification requirement, formerly in Office of Federal 
Procurement Policy (OFPP) Memorandum, The Federal Acquisition 
Certification for Contracting Officer Technical Representatives, 
(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 26, 2007) is currently in OFPP Memorandum, 
Revisions to the Federal Acquisition Certification for Contracting 
Officer's Representatives, (Sept. 6, 2011), effective January 1, 2012, 
which revised and replaced the former 2007 OFPP Memorandum. 

[16] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-39]; [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-413]. 

[17] ZA-2011-119. 

[18] ZA-2011-148. 

[End of section] 

GAO’s Mission: 

The Government Accountability Office, the audit, evaluation, and 
investigative arm of Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting 
its constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the 
performance and accountability of the federal government for the 
American people. GAO examines the use of public funds; evaluates 
federal programs and policies; and provides analyses, recommendations, 
and other assistance to help Congress make informed oversight, policy, 
and funding decisions. GAO’s commitment to good government is 
reflected in its core values of accountability, integrity, and 
reliability. 

Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony: 

The fastest and easiest way to obtain copies of GAO documents at no 
cost is through GAO’s website [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. Each 
weekday afternoon, GAO posts on its website newly released reports, 
testimony, and correspondence. To have GAO e-mail you a list of newly 
posted products, go to [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov] and select 
“E-mail Updates.” 

Order by Phone: 

The price of each GAO publication reflects GAO’s actual cost of 
production and distribution and depends on the number of pages in the 
publication and whether the publication is printed in color or black 
and white. Pricing and ordering information is posted on GAO’s 
website, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/ordering.htm]. 

Place orders by calling (202) 512-6000, toll free (866) 801-7077, or 
TDD (202) 512-2537. 

Orders may be paid for using American Express, Discover Card, 
MasterCard, Visa, check, or money order. Call for additional 
information. 

Connect with GAO: 

Connect with GAO on facebook, flickr, twitter, and YouTube.
Subscribe to our RSS Feeds or E mail Updates. Listen to our Podcasts.
Visit GAO on the web at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs: 

Contact: 
Website: [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm]; 
E-mail: fraudnet@gao.gov; 
Automated answering system: (800) 424-5454 or (202) 512-7470. 

Congressional Relations: 

Katherine Siggerud, Managing Director, siggerudk@gao.gov: 
(202) 512-4400: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street NW, Room 7125: 
Washington, DC 20548. 

Public Affairs: 
Chuck Young, Managing Director, youngc1@gao.gov: 
(202) 512-4800: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street NW, Room 7149: 
Washington, DC 20548. 

[End of document]