**GAO-11-923R**                      Published: Sep 26, 2011. Publicly Released: Sep 26, 2011.                  

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## Highlights

The Department of Defense (DOD) relies on a multisector workforce of military personnel, other federal employees, and private contractors to perform needed services. The contractor workforce is substantial: DOD is the federal government's largest purchaser of contractor-provided services, such as aircraft maintenance or base operating support. Determining whether to obtain services with in-house resources or through private sector contractors is an important economic and strategic decision essential to DOD's effective and efficient use of taxpayer dollars. Conducting competitions between public and private sources to identify the most cost-effective provider of services is one tool DOD can use to achieve such efficiencies. In the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (NDAA 2010), Congress imposed a temporary moratorium on new competitions involving functions currently performed by DOD civilian employees until, among other things, DOD reviewed and reported to Congress on various aspects of its public-private competition policies. The department submitted a report to Congress on its review on June 28, 2011. Should the moratorium be lifted, Congress also limited the duration of any new competitions to 24 months, with a possible extension to 33 months if DOD notifies Congress of the need for an extension. Congress required that we assess the DOD review and report on any use of the authority to extend the 24-month time limit..

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## Topics

National Defense

Civilian employeesCompetitionDepartment of Defense contractorsLessons learnedPrivate sectorReporting requirementsService contractsPublic-private competitionsPublic-private partnershipsBest practices