Homeland Defense: U.S. Northern Command Has a Strong Exercise Program, but Involvement of Interagency Partners and States Can Be Improved

GAO-09-849 Published: Sep 09, 2009. Publicly Released: Sep 09, 2009.

Highlights

U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) exercises to test preparedness to perform its homeland defense and civil support missions. GAO was asked to assess the extent to which NORTHCOM is (1) consistent with Department of Defense (DOD) training and exercise requirements, (2) involving interagency partners and states in its exercises, (3) using lessons learned and corrective actions to improve preparedness, and (4) integrating its exercises with the National Exercise Program (NEP). To do this, GAO reviewed NORTHCOM and NEP guidance and postexercise documentation, assessed NORTHCOM compliance, and compared DOD and NEP exercise requirements.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected	Recommendation	Status
Department of Defense	To improve NORTHCOM's consistency with exercise documentation, the Secretary of Defense should direct NORTHCOM's Commander to develop guidance with specific criteria for postexercise documentation, particularly the Exercise Summary Report as the official exercise record, including the content and format to be included in such reports that will allow the results and lessons learned of exercises to be easily reviewed and compared.	Closed – Implemented DOD agreed with the recommendation and cited a number of efforts NORTHCOM and the Joint Staff are taking to address it. NORTHCOM now uses the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation System (HSEEP) after-action report format for reports following National Level Exercises and major events, and posts these reports and Exercise Summary reports to the Department of Homeland Security's Lessons Learned Information Sharing System ( LLIS.gov). The Joint Staff and NORTHCOM are also tracking the development of the newly proposed FEMA National Exercise Division's Remedial Action Management Plan that, once fielded, will integrate Exercise Summary reports, lessons learned, and corrective action... View More
Department of Defense	To improve NORTHCOM's involvement of interagency partners and states in its exercises, the Secretary of Defense should, in consultation with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Commander, U.S. Northern Command, and other relevant combatant commanders, coordinate with DHS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to develop guidance and procedures for consistently involving state officials in planning, executing, and assessing exercises that incorporate relevant state-specific information.	Closed – Implemented DOD agreed with this recommendation and emphasized that in addition to NORTHCOM and other DOD elements' efforts, the recommendation has applicability to other US Government interagency partners. As such, DOD emphasized the role of the interagency Exercise and Evaluation Sub-Interagency Planning Committee in revising the National Exercise Program implementation plan. The Federal Emergency Management Agency provided a draft rewrite of the plan to the Secretary of Homeland Security in November 2010. The document states that it "seeks to be more effective, realistic, and collaborative across all levels of government, non-governmental organizations and the public and private sectors, with a... View More
Department of Defense	To improve NORTHCOM's involvement of interagency partners and states in its exercises, the Secretary of Defense should direct NORTHCOM's Commander to develop a training plan for NORTHCOM headquarters staff on state emergency management structures and relevant issues related to working with civilian state and local emergency management officials.	Closed – Implemented DOD agreed with the recommendation and cited a number of actions it has taken to address it. NORTHCOM completed updates to existing online courses that are part of the command's training that all personnel are required to receive. Updates included training on all-hazards response within the States to include the roles of the Adjutant General, the State Emergency Management Officer (and State Emergency Operations Center), and the Joint Force Headquarters-State, as well as the role of the National Guard Bureau. The Defense Support of Civil Authorities Senior Executive Seminar was replaced with the operationally oriented Defense Support of Civil Authorities State and Local Homeland Security... View More
Department of Defense	To improve NORTHCOM's involvement of interagency partners and states in its lessons learned and corrective action process and its management of corrective actions, the Secretary of Defense should direct NORTHCOM's Commander to establish and publicize valid and easily accessible procedures for non-DOD exercise participants to submit observations relevant to NORTHCOM, such as placing a template on NORTHCOM's publicly accessible Web site or DHS's Homeland Security Information Network, so that NORTHCOM officials have a clear, secure avenue to obtain observations and assess potential lessons that originate with its exercise partners.	Closed – Implemented DOD agreed with the recommendation and outlined a number of actions it planned to take to address it. A publicly accessible template now exists on the NORAD and NORTHCOM website, via a registration request. Participants provide the information according to the template and e-mail to the NORTHCOM lessons learned program managers. Additionally, NORTHCOM's exercise directorate manages the defense support of civil authorities channel on Department of Homeland Security's Lessons Learned Information System. Like all other channels, this includes an e-mail capability which allows all registered users to submit documents or other information to the Channel managers. NORTHCOM's exercise officials... View More
Department of Defense	To improve NORTHCOM's involvement of interagency partners and states in its lessons learned and corrective action process and its management of corrective actions, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in consultation and coordination with DHS, to either resolve information assurance issues so that the combatant commands, including NORTHCOM, can post Exercise Summary Reports with lessons learned and observations from NEP exercises on DHS's Lessons Learned Information Sharing system to make them easily accessible to interagency partners and states or establish an alternative method to systematically collect and share lessons learned.	Closed – Implemented DOD agreed with the recommendation. NORTHCOM has worked with Department of Homeland Security officials to coordinate the sharing of relevant exercise information. NORTHCOM's exercise directorate now posts lessons learned, after action reports, and Exercise Summary Reports to the Defense Support of Civil Authorities Channel of the Department of Homeland Security's web-based Lessons Learned Information System. NORTHCOM officials have also provided additional means by which the command's lessons learned information may be accessed by interagency partners on NORTHCOM's web portal. These actions should help NORTHCOM and all its exercise partners better coordinate the sharing of exercise... View More
Department of Defense	To improve NORTHCOM's involvement of interagency partners and states in its lessons learned and corrective action process and its management of corrective actions, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to revise the joint lessons learned operating instruction to include procedures to ensure that appropriate corrective actions are implemented and verified in a subsequent exercise or operation before being closed and that the reasons for closure are documented. Possible procedures might be adding a verification checkbox on JLLIS's issue management page or requiring that the directorates and subordinate commands within the combatant commands provide a status report when a correction is implemented and reobserved or closed for reasons other than re-observation.	Closed – Implemented DOD agreed with the recommendation and stated that it would revise its guidance for the Joint Lessons Learned Program to address it. DOD has initiated a revision of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3150.25D that will include the following draft language: "During the Evaluation Phase of the joint lessons learned process, corrective actions and solutions are implemented and verified in a subsequent exercise, operation, experiment or other appropriate venue before being closed. The reasons for closure or recommended re-evaluation are documented as part of the process." This instruction remains in revision. In February 2011, DOD published companion guidance as Chairman of... View More
Department of Defense	To improve NORTHCOM's ability to work with interagency partners on major national exercises and further achieve the objectives of the NEP, the Secretary of Defense should revise the instruction on DOD participation in the NEP and/or direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to revise the operating instruction regarding DOD participation in the NEP to provide the general conditions under which the combatant commands are expected to follow the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program planning and documentation requirements or the DOD's Joint Training System should be modified for those civil support exercises.	Closed – Implemented DOD agreed with the intent of the recommendation but stated that existing guidance provided sufficient direction for DOD components with respect to participating in the National Exercise Program. DOD subsequently decided to revise a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff instruction that re-iterates DOD guidance with respect to the National Exercise Program and addresses conditions for combatant command use of the Homeland Security Exercise Evaluation Program, as determined by DOD early in the particular exercise life cycle. Parallel with this effort, DHS issued a revised National Exercise Program Base Plan in March 2011 and a revised National Exercise Program Implementation Plan in June... View More

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