Congress passed the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA) in 1990 to address issues related to workforce quality, to formally establish the acquisition workforce, and to increase its professionalism by directing DOD to create certification requirements for the acquisition workforce. In response, DOD defined its acquisition workforce, which evolved into the 16 career fields and paths that currently exist. According to DAU officials, this definition is still evolving. For each of the career fields and paths that DOD established, there are minimum requirements for education, experience, and training under DAWIA. The DAWIA workforce numbered 133,103 at the end of fiscal year 2009 and 150,566 at the end of March 2011. In 2010, DOD developed a Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Strategy to establish a comprehensive acquisition workforce analysis and decision-making capability that is still ongoing. The workforce analysis is focused on the DAWIA workforce and does not cover non-DAWIA personnel with acquisition-related responsibilities despite recognition of the important roles they play in acquiring services in the federal government. The number of personnel and roles on services acquisitions can vary greatly. With the exception of DAWIA-certified contracting officers, who administer services acquisitions and are involved throughout the life cycle of a contract, other professionals do fall outside of DAWIA. A model of the services acquisition process is demonstrated in figure 1 below along with the roles of personnel who may be involved in the various stages throughout the life cycle of services acquisitions. Manage and assess contractor performance Requirements official(s) Source selection board member Contracting officer’s representative(s) Technical assistant(s) GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Tailored Approach Needed to Improve Service Acquisition Outcomes, GAO-07-20 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 9, 2006). complex investments that did not have well-defined requirements, a complete set of measurable performance standards, or both. The Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) issued guidance in 2005 that built on previous efforts to improve the development of the acquisition workforce by defining the acquisition workforce more broadly than DOD’s definition under DAWIA. The OFPP policy applies to all executive agencies, except those subject to DAWIA. OFPP’s definition includes individuals who perform various acquisition functions to support accomplishing an agency’s mission. At a minimum, the acquisition workforce of a civilian agency includes contracting specialists, contracting officers regardless of general schedule series, contracting officers’ representatives or equivalent positions, program and project managers, positions in the purchasing series, and any significant acquisition positions identified by the agency. Members of the civilian acquisition workforce may also include: individuals substantially involved in defining, determining, and managing requirements; individuals involved in acquisition planning and strategy; individuals who participate in the contracting process (including soliciting, evaluating, and awarding of contracts); individuals who manage the process after the contract is awarded (including testing and evaluating; managing, monitoring, and evaluating performance on the contract; auditing; and administering the contract); individuals involved in property management; individuals who support the business processes of the above listed activities (e.g., General Counsel, finance, or other subject matter experts); and individuals who directly manage those involved in any of the above activities. Non-DAWIA personnel are assigned responsibilities in critical phases of the acquisition process, but no DOD organization has systematically identified these personnel and the acquisition-related competencies they require or been designated the responsibility of overseeing this group—as has been done for the personnel who are members of the DAWIA workforce. In our sample of 29 service contracts, we determined that the number of non-DAWIA personnel with acquisition-related responsibilities was substantial. Identifying non-DAWIA personnel with acquisition-related responsibilities is challenging, but DOD is working to identify a portion of this population—requirements personnel for major weapon systems—and provide specific training. DOD identified 218 of the 430 personnel (51 percent) reported to us as involved in the 29 contracts in our sample as outside the DAWIA workforce. While the absolute number is large, their acquisition-related responsibilities are generally part-time, according to DOD officials. Nonetheless, their roles and responsibilities touched all three phases of the services acquisition life cycle and included personnel with such titles as program managers, CORs, requirement officials, auditors, and legal advisors. DAU has acknowledged that non-DAWIA personnel with acquisition-related responsibilities may also include technical experts, financial managers, and others whose duties may affect or be affected by the acquisition process. According to senior DOD officials, DOD policy does not require tracking or training for these non-DAWIA personnel with acquisition-related responsibilities, but they are assigned responsibilities in critical phases of the acquisition process—acquisition planning, contract solicitation and award, and contract administration. Decisions about the number and type of personnel involved in each individual contract are made at the discretion of the organization responsible for the contract and may vary widely from contract to contract depending on the type of acquisition and the service or command. For 23 of the 29 contracts we reviewed, DOD officials identified non-DAWIA personnel with acquisition-related responsibilities working on the contract. The number of non-DAWIA personnel with acquisition-related responsibilities reported in our sample ranged from 61 on one Navy contract to none on two different DLA contracts. For two similar Air Force contracts involving aircraft maintenance, one reported 21 non-DAWIA personnel with acquisition-related responsibilities involved in the contract, and the other reported 3. According to an Air Force contracting officer, the number of CORs associated with a contract can vary depending on the experience and skills needed to monitor the work being performed by the contractor. Additionally, variation among personnel identified on the contracts is also a result of personnel turnover, which may impact the overall number of non-DAWIA personnel with acquisition-related responsibilities identified on a particular contract. Based on our sample of 29 contracts, we identified 12 categories of personnel that have acquisition-related roles and responsibilities but are not part of the DAWIA workforce. Figure 2 shows the number of non- DAWIA personnel with acquisition-related responsibilities in each of the 12 categories we identified based on DOD data, titles, and policy. See appendix II for a description of the 12 categories and acquisition-related responsibilities associated with them. In some cases, DOD reported personnel as serving in more than one role on the contract. For example, a COR was also reported as serving as a program manager—who is the principal technical expert usually most familiar with the requirements. In another example, a multifunctional team member—who plans and manages services acquisitions throughout the life of the requirement— was reported as also being the functional commander, who is the senior official of a requirements organization. Figure 2 below eliminates the multiple roles as we included the individual in a specific role identified in DOD’s guidebook, such as a COR, over a role within a group, such as a member of a multifunctional team. In addition, DOD identified personnel with acquisition-related responsibilities who had titles such as technical assistants, assistant CORs, and task managers who were not designated as the COR. This group along with CORs represented the vast majority of personnel on our 29 contracts. We were able to collect data on the non-DAWIA population from individual commands and contracting organizations on a contract-by- contract basis, but no organization within DOD is responsible for identifying, developing, and managing non-DAWIA personnel with acquisition-related responsibilities—even though these personnel represented over half the people reported as working on the service contracts we reviewed. DOD is not required to identify non-DAWIA personnel with acquisition-related responsibilities, and senior officials stated that DOD has not established criteria or a process to do so across the department or among organizations in DOD that have a role in helping to manage issues focused on services acquisitions. For the DAWIA population, however, organizations within DOD—including DAU, the Directors of Acquisition Career Management (DACMs), and the Functional Integrated Process Teams (FIPTs)—have integrated tracking responsibilities that allow DOD to strategically manage this population.8 DAU officials explained that in keeping with their mission and priority, they focus their resources on DAWIA professionals. According to DOD officials, the mission of each military service’s DACM is to track personnel covered under DAWIA and identify demand for training. FIPTs were established for 14 different acquisition career fields for the DAWIA workforce. The FIPT lead advises DOD on DAWIA career development policies and procedures, including education, training, and experience requirements for civilian and military personnel in the acquisition workforce. They also, in conjunction with the DACMs, identify demand for training. as the medical monitor to review the research proposal to help ensure the safety of the study participants. However, this official’s primary duty in the Air Force was an active duty flight surgeon. DOD officials stated that acquisition personnel may serve in both DAWIA and non-DAWIA positions at different points in their DOD careers, further complicating attempts to identify or track personnel. In the 29 contracts we reviewed, we found several examples of personnel serving in the same role with the same responsibilities—such as requirements definition, program management, and contractor oversight—some of whom were DAWIA personnel, while others were non-DAWIA personnel with acquisition-related responsibilities. Figure 3 depicts our sample of DOD’s acquisition workforce and the roles that overlap between the DAWIA workforce and non-DAWIA personnel with acquisition-related responsibilities.