DoD’s civilian human capital strategic plan does not meet most statutory requirements, GAO has said.
DoD was required by the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2006 to develop a strategic plan to shape and improve the DoD civilian employee workforce that addressed eight requirements.
The plan was submitted 10 months late and only partially addresses some but not all aspects of two of the congressional reporting requirements, according to GAO-08-439R.
It said DoD’s plan includes a list of mission-critical occupations needed for the current civilian workforce, but that the list does not constitute the required assessment of skills of the existing workforce.
The plan also does not address six of the eight congressional reporting requirements, GAO said.
It said for example that the plan does not include an assessment of current mission-critical competencies, future critical skills and competencies needed, gaps between the current and future needs, or specific recruiting and retention goals, even though these elements are required by the 2006 act.
Defense officials acknowledged that the plan is incomplete, and it stated some requirements are to be addressed at a later date, or in other documents, but GAO said that since it was not submitted to the committees pursuant to the 2006 act it cannot be considered as meeting the mandate and that it was only partially complete anyway.
GAO recommended that DoD submit to Congress a civilian human capital strategic plan that addresses all of the statutory requirements, but DoD disagreed, noting that its response to the congressional reporting requirements reflected a centralized enterprise-wide strategic perspective — as opposed to providing the information specified by the law, such as recruiting and retention goals.
