DOD’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness is the adviser to the Secretary of Defense for total force management, and as such the Under Secretary, among other things, is responsible for identifying civilian requirements for Senior Executive Service, Senior Level, and Senior Technical positions. Specifically, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness directed the last review of DOD’s Senior Executive Service, Senior Level, and Senior Technical positions in a 2008 baseline review. The Principal Deputy directed that the review be completed in 60 days and stated that the results would be used to respond to reporting requirements in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. This act required DOD to, among other things, assess its requirements for senior management, functional, and technical personnel (including scientists and engineers) in light of recent trends. Similarly, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence exercises overall supervision and policy oversight for human capital within the defense intelligence community. In 2007, this office sent DOD’s intelligence community guidance for a review of Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service and Defense Intelligence Senior Level civilian leader workforce requirements. This review, according to the guidance, was intended to spur an examination and validation of senior civilian requirements, provide DOD management with evidence that resources were being used wisely, and provide an explanation of what resources the intelligence community required and why, so that officials could make budget allocations decisions and defend those requirements before Congress. The intelligence community had 120 days to conduct its review. Recently, however, a September 3, 2010, memorandum directed the department to perform a similar study of these positions to support efficiency initiatives that are expected to result in a reduction of at least 150 civilian senior leader positions. In addition to the above, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness oversees the process for identifying the need for additional Senior Executive Service, Senior Level, and Senior Technical personnel. When an entity in DOD identifies a need for an additional Senior Executive Service, Senior Level, or Senior Technical allocation, the need is sent to either an executive board or office that reviews the request. Once the executive board or office has reviewed all requests, they are forwarded to an approving official, typically the secretary of the service, an under secretary, or someone in an equivalent position. Once the list is approved, it is sent to the Civilian Personnel Management Service within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, which aggregates, levels, and forwards the list to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness who reviews and approves the list before it is sent to OPM. OPM, in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget, assigns Senior Executive Service, Senior Level, and Senior Technical allocations every 2 years to DOD and all other federal agencies. During the biennial review, OPM establishes guidelines for executive branch agencies to follow when requesting additional Senior Executive Service, Senior Level, and Senior Technical allocations; evaluates agency requests for new allocations; and authorizes increases in the number of allocations for each agency. OPM conducted the most recent biennial review in 2009 for allocations to be granted for fiscal years 2010 through 2011. Figure 1 depicts DOD’s process for identifying and communicating the need for additional DOD Senior Executive Service, Senior Level, and Senior Technical requirements for the services, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the defense agencies, the Joint Staff, and DOD’s combatant commands. Because the maximum number of Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service allocations is established by law, DOD uses a separate process to communicate the need for additional Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service personnel. On the basis of requirements identified by the military services’ intelligence branches and the defense intelligence community agencies, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence develops legislative proposals to request increases in the number of Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service allocations. The office provides the legislative proposal to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, which submits the proposal to DOD’s General Counsel for inclusion in DOD’s general legislative proposal program. The Secretary of Defense was provided with authority to create a separate Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service workforce by section 1632 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997. The legislation also stipulates that the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service workforce is equivalent to the Senior Executive Service workforce. A DOD draft directive—which department officials said was in use at the time of our review—states that individuals serving in Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service positions have the same administrative requirements and responsibilities as federal Senior Executive Service personnel. Figure 2 depicts DOD’s process to support requests to Congress for additional Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service allocations. As of September 2009, DOD was authorized 2,934 allocations for its civilian senior leader workforces, representing less than 1 percent of DOD’s total civilian workforce. Table 1 provides the number of DOD Senior Executive Service, Senior Level, and Senior Technical allocations authorized by OPM, the number of Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service allocations authorized by statute, and the number of Defense Intelligence Senior Level allocations authorized by the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence as of September 2009. For perspective, appendix II provides information on the number of employees working in selected federal agencies across the government and their respective number of civilian senior leader personnel, as of September 2009. Appendix III provides three tables on the number of Senior Executive Service, Senior Level, and Senior Technical allocations OPM made to selected executive branch agencies from fiscal year 2000 through fiscal year 2009. In 2008, DOD conducted a baseline review to assess and validate Senior Executive Service, Senior Level, and Senior Technical workforce requirements and reported to Congress that this was a rigorous analysis. However, while the department’s approach appears reasonable, some of the information the components submitted in response to the review was incomplete and DOD did not document and summarize the information so that it could be readily traced back to the component submissions. Standards for internal control in the federal government state that documentation of transactions and other significant events is to be complete and accurate and is to facilitate the tracing of the transaction or event and related information. This applies to the entire process or life cycle of a transaction or event—from its initiation and authorization through its final classification in summary records. DOD’s April 2008 memorandum for the baseline review provided components a key opportunity to, among other things, validate and align DOD’s civilian senior leader workforce requirements, assess gaps in resource requirements, and identify component-specific strategic priorities. This memorandum was sent to the secretaries of the military departments, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the under secretaries of defense, the commanders of the combatant commands, the assistant secretaries of defense, the General Counsel of DOD, the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, the DOD Inspector General, the assistants to the Secretary of Defense, the Director of Administration and Management, the Director of Program Analysis and Evaluation, the Director of Net Assessment, the directors of the defense agencies, and the directors of DOD field activities. We found that the 2008 memorandum presents a reasonable way to validate baseline requirements. However, during the course of our review officials provided us with available data and information obtained from 21 components, and we found that some of the components submitted information that was incomplete and not all of the components submitted information specified in the baseline review. For example, DOD provided us with the data and information received from components, including the Defense Logistics Agency, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Department of the Navy, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. However, our review of the documents provided showed that at least 6 of the 21 defense components did not submit complete responses. For example, the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff provided information on its civilian senior leader positions, such as the responsibility of the positions; the operation, project, or program managed; and whether the positions are responsible for managing resources. However, the Joint Staff did not provide required narrative responses, such as position validation and missions and strategies supported. Additionally, according to a DOD official the Army and the Air Force did not submit information as specified in the 2008 memorandum for the baseline review. This official stated that the Army and the Air Force chose to use assessments of their Senior Executive Service, Senior Level, and Senior Technical workforces that had been conducted in response to OPM’s 2008-2009 Biennial Review of Executive Resources Allocations. However, this DOD official was unable to provide us with copies of the assessments completed by the Army and Air Force. It is therefore unclear if these documents addressed the objectives of the baseline review, which include such elements as aligning positions with the department’s 21st Century Leader criteria and proposing any new executive categories for optimum development, management, and utilization of executive talent. Additionally, DOD did not document or summarize the information so it could be readily traced back to the component submissions. Specifically, DOD was unable to provide us with documentation of aggregate, bottom- line conclusions from the analysis the department conducted after considering the individual component submissions. Moreover, department officials stated that they did not present their aggregate analysis in a report summarizing the results of the baseline review. DOD officials with knowledge of the baseline review told us that they did not intend to summarize the baseline review analysis or provide a final report on that review. They further stated that DOD did not summarize the analysis because the information was only intended to be used to support a variety of human capital management processes taking place in the department. For example, the department said it used information from the baseline review in DOD’s 2009 update to its Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan.