The Navy’s fleet readiness plan would benefit from a
more comprehensive management approach and rigorous
testing, the Government Accountability Office has said.
It said the department’s approach to implementing the
plan has not fully incorporated sound management
practices that are needed to guide and assess the
implementation.
The practices include establishing a coherent mission
and strategic goals, including resource commitments,
setting implementation goals and a timeline, and
establishing a communication strategy, according to
GAO-06-84.
It said the Navy has taken positive steps toward
implementation, but still needs readiness goals for
units apart from carrier strike groups, it has not
provided resource and maintenance goals, performance
measures and timelines, or a communications strategy.
Because senior leaders quickly implemented the
readiness plan in response to changing threats, “sound
management practices were not fully developed,”
according to the report.
It said the Navy has not fully tested and evaluated the
plan or developed lessons-learned to identify successes
over time – and rather than methodically test the plan,
the Navy has tried to demonstrate its viability by
“relying on loosely linked events that were not part of
an overall test and evaluation strategy.”
Congress has appropriated about $50 billion a year to
the Navy since 2000 to operate and maintain its forces
and support about 376,000 personnel, GAO said.
