GAO has called on the Federal Protective Service to resolve delays and oversight issues with its facility risk assessment and security guard management program – RAMP.
The program is over budget, behind schedule, and cannot be used to complete facility security assessments, and reliable guard inspections as intended, according to GAO-11-705R.
It said RAMP’s contract award amount now totals $57 million, up from the original $21 million price tag, and FPS has experienced delays in developing and implementing RAMP, as it is almost 2 years behind its original July 2009 implementation date.
Further, FPS is experiencing difficulty using RAMP to ensure that its approximately 13,200 contract guards have met training and certification requirements to be deployed at federal facilities because it does not have a process for verifying this information before it is entered into the system.
RAMP also does not yet fully incorporate certain government security standards, said GAO.
It called on the DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate and FPS to consider whether to even continue with development, while increasing the use of project management best practices by managing requirements and conducting user acceptance testing for any future RAMP development efforts.
FPS also needs interim solutions for completing assessments and guard inspections while addressing program challenges, said GAO.
