Defense secretary Robert Gates has directed the chief acquisition executives of the military departments and the commanders and directors of the other DoD components to establish a senior manager for acquisition of services position at the general officer, flag or SES level.
That senior manager will be responsible for governance in planning, execution, strategic sourcing, and management of service contracts, said Gates in a lengthy memo on defense acquisition reforms.
DoD’s practices for buying services are immature compared to weapons acquisition, said the memo.
It said new governance is needed at the department in order to achieve efficiencies in services contracting commensurate with the scale of the department’s spending — $212 billion in fiscal 2009, through more than 100,000 contracting vehicles.
