Pentagon management needs to take actions to improve the Defense department’s investment in the joint national training capability, the Government Accountability Office has said.
It said the JNTC accounts for 84 percent of the $2 billion DoD plans to invest by 2011 to ensure commanders and forces deploying to their theaters have joint-operating experience,
but that the extent to which the JNTC is improving joint training overall is unclear because DoD has not yet assessed the program’s results.
GAO said that while its review of five JNTC-enhanced training events found indications of some joint training improvements, that DoD has not developed a strategy to evaluate the overall
impact of the JNTC initiative.
Such a strategy would include metrics, time frames, and processes for gathering data, needed to determine whether the money invested in the initiative would produce desired results
or maximize the benefit for the investment, according to GAO-06-802.
It said the Joint Forces Command has begun to develop an accreditation process to facilitate the JNTC initiative’s goals, but that it has not emphasized new and emerging missions, taken
steps to ensure that accredited joint tasks will continue in future training rotations, or incorporated the National Guard.
