The Army has taken a number of steps since June 2010 at different levels to provide for more effective management and oversight of contracts supporting Arlington, including improving visibility of contracts, establishing new support relationships, formalizing policies and procedures, and increasing the use of dedicated contracting staff to manage and improve acquisition processes. While significant progress has been made, we have recommended that the Army take further action in these areas to ensure continued improvement and institutionalize progress made to date. These recommendations and the agency's response are discussed later in this statement. Arlington does not have its own contracting authority and, as such, relies on other contracting offices to award and manage contracts on its behalf. ANCP receives contracting support in one of two main ways, either by (1) working directly with contracting offices to define requirements, ensure the appropriate contract vehicle, and provide contract oversight, or (2) partnering with another program office to leverage expertise and get help with defining requirements and providing contract oversight. Those program offices, in turn, use other contracting arrangements to obtain services and perform work for Arlington. Using data from multiple sources, we identified 56 contracts and task orders that were active during fiscal year 2010 and the first three quarters of fiscal year 2011 under which these contracting offices obligated roughly $35.2 million on Arlington’s behalf. These contracts and task orders supported cemetery operations, such as landscaping, custodial, and guard services; construction and facility maintenance; and new efforts to enhance information technology systems for the automation of burial operations. Figure 1 identifies the contracting relationships, along with the number of contracts and dollars obligated by contracting office, for the contracts and task orders we reviewed. At the time of our review, we found that ANCP did not maintain complete data on contracts supporting its operations. We have previously reported that the effective acquisition of services requires reliable data to enable informed management decisions.leadership may be without sufficient information to identify, track, and ensure the effective management and oversight of its contracts. While we obtained information on Arlington contracts from various sources, limitations associated with each of these sources make identifying and tracking Arlington’s contracts as a whole difficult. For example: Without complete data, ANCP Internal ANCP data. A contract specialist detailed to ANCP in September 2010 developed and maintained a spreadsheet to identify and track data for specific contracts covering daily cemetery operations and maintenance services. Likewise, ANCP resource management staff maintain a separate spreadsheet that tracks purchase requests and some associated contracts, as well as the amount of funding provided to other organizations through the use of military interdepartmental purchase requests. Neither of these spreadsheets identifies the specific contracts and obligations associated with Arlington’s current information technology and construction requirements. Existing contract and financial systems. The Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation (FPDS-NG) is the primary system used to track governmentwide contract data, including those for the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Army. The Arlington funding office identification number, a unique code that is intended to identify transactions specific to Arlington, is not consistently used in this system and, in fact, was used for only 34 of the 56 contracts in our review. In October 2010 and consistent with a broader Army initiative, ANCP implemented the General Fund Enterprise Business System (GFEBS) to enhance financial management and oversight and to improve its capability to track expenditures. We found that data in this system did not identify the specific information technology contracts supported by the Army Communications-Electronics Command, Army Geospatial Center, Naval Supply Systems Command Weapon Systems Support office, and others. Officials at ANCP and at the MICC-Fort Belvoir stated that they were exploring the use of additional data resources to assist in tracking Arlington contracts, including the Virtual Contracting Enterprise, an electronic tool intended to help enable visibility and analysis of elements of the contracting process. Contracting support organizations. We also found that Army contracting offices had difficulty in readily providing complete and accurate data to us on Arlington contracts. For example, the National Capital Region Contracting Center could not provide a complete list of active contracts supporting Arlington during fiscal years 2010 and 2011 and in some cases did not provide accurate dollar amounts associated with the contracts it identified. USACE also had difficulty providing a complete list of active Arlington contracts for this time frame. The MICC-Fort Belvoir contracting office was able to provide a complete list of the recently awarded contracts supporting Arlington with accurate dollar amounts for this time frame, and those data were supported by similar information from Arlington. The Army has also taken a number of steps to better align ANCP contract support with the expertise of its partners. However, some of the agreements governing these relationships do not yet fully define roles and responsibilities for contracting support. We have previously reported that a key factor in improving DOD’s service acquisition outcomes—that is, obtaining the right service, at the right price, in the right manner—is having defined responsibilities and associated support structures. Going forward, sustained attention on the part of ANCP and its partners will be important to ensure that contracts of all types and risk levels are managed effectively. The following summarizes ongoing efforts in this area: ANCP established a new contracting support agreement with the Army Contracting Command in August 2010. The agreement states that the command will assign appropriate contracting offices to provide support, in coordination with ANCP, and will conduct joint periodic reviews of new and ongoing contract requirements. In April 2011, ANCP also signed a separate agreement with the MICC, part of the Army Contracting Command, which outlines additional responsibilities for providing contracting support to ANCP. While this agreement states that the MICC, through the Fort Belvoir contracting office, will provide the full range of contracting support, it does not specify the types of requirements that will be supported, nor does it specify that other offices within the command may also do so. ANCP signed an updated support agreement with USACE in December 2010, which states that these organizations will coordinate to assign appropriate offices to provide contracting support and that USACE will provide periodic joint reviews of ongoing and upcoming requirements. At the time of our review, USACE officials noted that they were in the process of finalizing an overarching program management plan with ANCP, which, if implemented, provides additional detail about the structure of and roles and responsibilities for support. USACE and ANCP have also established a Senior Executive Review Group, which updates the senior leadership at both organizations on the status of ongoing efforts. ANCP has also put agreements in place with the Army Information Technology Agency (ITA) and the Army Analytics Group, which provide program support for managing information technology infrastructure and enhance operational capabilities. Officials at ANCP decided to leverage this existing Army expertise, rather than attempting to develop such capabilities independently as was the case under the previous Arlington management. For example, the agreement in place with ITA identifies the services that will be provided to Arlington, performance metrics against which ITA will be measured, as well as Arlington’s responsibilities. These organizations are also responsible for managing the use of contracts in support of their efforts; however, the agreement with ANCP does not specifically address roles and responsibilities associated with the use and management of these contracts supporting Arlington requirements. Although officials from these organizations told us that they currently understand their responsibilities, without being clearly defined in the existing agreements, roles and responsibilities may be less clear in the future when personnel change. ANCP has developed new internal policies and procedures and improved training for staff serving as contracting officer’s representatives, and has dedicated additional staff resources to improve contract management. Many of these efforts were in process at the time of our review, including decisions on contracting staff needs, and their success will depend on continued management attention. The following summarizes our findings in this area: Arlington has taken several steps to more formally define its own internal policies and procedures for contract management. In July 2010, the Executive Director of ANCP issued guidance stating that the Army Contracting Command and USACE are the only authorized contracting centers for Arlington. Further, ANCP is continuing efforts to (1) develop standard operating procedures associated with purchase requests; (2) develop memorandums for all ANCP employees that outline principles of the procurement process, as well as training requirements for contracting officer’s representatives; and (3) create a common location for reference materials and information associated with Arlington contracts. In May 2011, the Executive Director issued guidance requiring contracting officer’s representative training for all personnel assigned to perform that role, and at the time of our review, all of the individuals serving as contracting officer’s representatives had received training for that position. ANCP, in coordination with the MICC-Fort Belvoir contracting office is evaluating staffing requirements to determine the appropriate number, skill level, and location of contracting personnel. In July 2010, the Army completed a study that assessed Arlington’s manpower requirements and identified the need for three full-time contract specialist positions. While these positions have not been filled to date, ANCP’s needs have instead been met through the use of staff provided by the MICC. At the time of our review, the MICC-Fort Belvoir was providing a total of 10 contracting staff positions in support of Arlington, 5 of which are funded by ANCP, with the other 5 funded by the MICC-Fort Belvoir to help ensure adequate support for Arlington requirements. ANCP officials have identified the need for a more senior contracting specialist and stated that they intend to request an update to their staffing allowance for fiscal year 2013 to fill this new position. Prior reviews of Arlington have identified numerous issues with contracts in place prior to the new leadership at ANCP. While our review of similar contracts found common concerns, we also found that contracts and task orders awarded since June 2010 reflect improvements in acquisition practices. Our previous contracting-related work has identified the need to have well-defined requirements, sound business arrangements (i.e., contracts in place), and the right oversight mechanisms to ensure positive outcomes. We found examples of improved documentation, better definition and consolidation of existing requirements for services supporting daily cemetery operations, and more specific requirements for contractor performance.