The 89 recommendations in the panel report are largely consistent with our past work and recommendations. I will now discuss each of the seven areas the panel reviewed, the general thrust of the panel’s recommendations, and our views on them. The first area the panel reviewed was commercial practices. According to the panel, the bedrock principle of commercial acquisition is competition. The panel found that defining requirements is key to achieving the benefits of competition because procurements with clear requirements are far more likely to produce competitive, fixed-price offers that meet customer needs. Further, the panel found that commercial organizations invest the time and resources necessary to understand and define their requirements. They use multidisciplinary teams to plan their procurements, conduct competitions for award, and monitor contract performance. Commercial organizations rely on well-defined requirements and competitive awards to reduce prices and obtain innovative, high-quality goods and services. Hence, practices that enhance and encourage competition were the basis of the panel recommendations. The panel recommended, among other things, that the requirements process be improved and competitive procedures be strengthened. Our work is generally consistent with the panel’s recommendations, and we have issued numerous products that address the importance of a robust requirements definition process and the need for competition. For example, in January 2007, we testified that poorly defined or broadly described requirements have contributed to undesired services acquisition outcomes. To produce desired outcomes within available funding and required time frames, our work has shown that DOD and its contractors need to clearly understand acquisition objectives and how they translate into the contract’s terms and conditions. The absence of well-defined requirements and clearly understood objectives complicates efforts to hold DOD and contractors accountable for poor acquisition outcomes. This has been a long-standing issue. Regarding competition, we have stated that competition is a fundamental principle underlying the federal acquisition process. Nevertheless, we have reported numerous times on the lack of competition in DOD’s acquisition of goods and services. For example, we noted in April 2006 that DOD awarded contracts for security guard services supporting 57 domestic bases, 46 of which were let on an authorized sole-source basis. The sole- source contracts were awarded by DOD despite recognizing it was paying about 25 percent more than previously paid for the contracts awarded competitively. The second area the panel reviewed was improving the implementation of performance-based acquisitions. The panel reported that performance- based acquisition (PBA) has not been fully implemented in the federal government even though OMB has encouraged greater use of it—setting a general goal in 2001 of making performance-based contracts 40 percent or more of all eligible service acquisitions for fiscal year 2006. The panel reported that agencies were not clearly defining requirements, not preparing adequate statements of work, not identifying meaningful quality measures and effective incentives, and not effectively managing the contract. The panel noted that a cultural emphasis on “getting to award” still exists within the government, an emphasis that precludes taking the time to clarify agency needs and adequately define requirements. The panel recommended that OFPP issue more explicit implementation guidance and create a PBA “Opportunity Assessment” tool to help agencies identify when they should consider using PBA contracts. Like the panel, we have found that agencies have faced a number of issues when using PBA contracts. For example, we reported in April 2003 that there was inadequate guidance and training, a weak internal control environment, and limited performance measures and data that agencies could use to make informed decisions on when to use PBA. We have made recommendations similar to the panel’s. For example, we have recommended that the Administrator of OFPP work with agencies to periodically evaluate how well agencies understand PBA and how they can apply it to services that are widely available in the commercial sector, particularly more unique and complex services. The panel’s concern that agencies are not properly managing PBA contracts is also consistent with our work on surveillance of service contracts. In a March 2005 report, we found that proper surveillance of service contracts, including PBAs, was not being conducted, leaving DOD at risk of being unable to identify and correct poor contractor performance. Accordingly, we recommended that the Secretary of Defense ensure the proper training of personnel in surveillance and their assignment to contracts no later than the date of contract award. We further recommended the development of practices to help ensure accountability for personnel carrying out surveillance responsibilities. We have also found that some agencies have attempted to apply PBA to complex and risky acquisitions, a fact that underscores the need to maintain strong government surveillance to mitigate risks. The third area the panel reviewed was interagency contracting. The panel found that reliance on interagency contracts is significant. According to the panel report, 40 percent of the total 2004 obligations, or $142 billion, was obligated through the use of interagency contracts. The panel also found that a significant reason for the increased use of these contracts has been reductions in the acquisition workforce accompanied by increased workloads and pressures to reduce procurement lead times. Accordingly, the panel made numerous recommendations to improve the use of interagency contracts with the intent of enhancing competition, lowering prices, improving the expertise of the acquisition workforce, and improving guidance for choosing the most appropriate interagency contract for procurements. Our work is generally consistent with the panel’s recommendations on interagency contracting. In fact, 15 of our reports on interagency contracting were cited in the panel report. These included numerous recommendations that are consistent with the panel’s recommendations. Our reports recognize that interagency contracts can provide the advantages of timeliness and efficiency by leveraging the government’s buying power and providing a simplified and expedited method of procurement. However, our prior work has found that agencies involved in the interagency contracting process have not always obtained required competition, evaluated contracting alternatives, or conducted adequate oversight. A number of factors render the use of interagency contracts high risk; these factors include their rapid growth in popularity, their use by some agencies that have limited expertise with this contracting method, and the number of parties that might be involved. Taken collectively, these factors contribute to a much more complex procurement environment— one in which accountability is not always clearly established. In 2005, because we found that interagency contracts can pose risks if they are not properly managed, we designated the management of interagency contracting a governmentwide high-risk area. The fourth area the panel reviewed was small business. The panel made recommendations to change the guidance to contracting officers for awarding contracts to small businesses. These recommendations are intended to improve the policies and, hence, address the socioeconomic benefits derived from acquiring services from small businesses. OFPP has taken the position that all but one of the recommendations requires legislation to implement. While our work on small business has addressed a number of policy issues, we have not made recommendations for statutory and regulatory changes when arguments for such changes are based on value judgments, such as those related to setting small business contracting goals. The fifth area the panel reviewed was the federal acquisition workforce. The panel recognized a significant mismatch between the demands placed on the acquisition workforce and the personnel and skills available within the workforce to meet those demands. The panel found, for example, that demands on the federal acquisition workforce have grown substantially while at the same time, the complexity of the federal acquisition system as a whole has increased. Accordingly, the panel made a number of recommendations designed to define, assess, train, and collect data on the acquisition workforce and to recruit talented entry level personnel and retain its senior workforce. Our work is generally consistent with the panel’s findings and recommendations on the acquisition workforce. On the basis of observations made by acquisition experts from the federal government, private sector, and academia, we reported in October 2006 that agency leaders have not recognized or elevated the importance of the acquisition profession within their organizations. The agency leaders further noted that a strategic approach had not been taken across government or within agencies to focus on workforce challenges, such as creating a positive image essential to successfully recruit and retain a new generation of talented acquisition professionals. In September 2006, we testified that while the amount, nature, and complexity of contract activity has increased, DOD’s acquisition workforce, the largest component of the government’s acquisition workforce, has remained relatively unchanged in size and faces certain skill gaps and serious succession planning challenges. Further, we testified that DOD’s acquisition workforce must have the right skills and capabilities if it is to effectively implement best practices and properly manage the goods and services it buys. In July 2006, we reported that in the ever-changing DOD contracting environment, the acquisition workforce must be able to rapidly adapt to increasing workloads while continuing to improve its knowledge of market conditions, industry trends, and the technical details of the goods and services it procures. Moreover, we noted that effective workforce skills were essential for ensuring that DOD receives fair and reasonable prices for the goods and services it buys and identified a number of conditions that increased DOD’s vulnerabilities to contracting waste and abuse. The sixth area the panel reviewed was contractors supporting the federal government. The panel reported that, in some cases, contractors are solely or predominantly responsible for the performance of mission-critical functions that were traditionally performed by government employees, such as acquisition program management and procurement, policy analysis, and quality assurance. Further, the panel noted that this development has created issues with respect to the proper roles of, and relationships between, federal employees and contractor employees in the “blended” workforce. The panel stated that although federal law prohibits contracting for activities and functions that are inherently governmental, uncertainty about the proper scope and application of this term has led to confusion, particularly with respect to service contracting outside the scope of OMB’s Circular A-76, which provides guidance on competing work for commercial activities via public-private competition. Moreover, according to the panel, as the federal workforce shrinks, there is a need to ensure that agencies have sufficient in-house expertise and experience to perform inherently governmental functions by being in a position to make critical decisions on policy and program management issues and to manage the performance of contractors.