Since 2003, GAO has made more than 2,400 recommendations for improvements in DHS management and the department has made “considerable progress,” carrying out more than 70 percent of them, GAO told a Senate hearing recently.
As one result, DHS is making progress toward getting off the audit agency’s list “high-risk” federal programs, having met criteria for leadership commitment, an action plan and monitoring, GAO said. The other two, having sufficient resources and making demonstrated progress, are partially met, leaving none unmet.
The area of most remaining concern is strengthening and integrating DHS management functions in the areas of human capital, acquisition, finances and IT, GAO said.
“DHS has established a plan for addressing the high-risk area and a framework for monitoring its progress in implementing the plan. However, DHS needs to show additional results in other areas, including demonstrating the ability to achieve sustained progress across 30 outcomes that GAO identified and DHS agreed were needed to address the high-risk area. As of March 2016, DHS had fully addressed 10 of these outcomes but work remained in 20,” GAO said.
It said, for example, that DHS does not have the acquisition management tools in place to consistently demonstrate whether its major acquisition programs were on track to achieve their cost, schedule, and capability goals. Also, it lacks modern financial management systems, which affects its ability to have ready access to reliable information for informed decision making, GAO said.
