From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Federal Acquisitions Update Description: In 2007, a congressional advisory panel identified ways the government could buy goods and services more effectively and save money in the process. Hear what GAO found when it reviewed how federal agencies have handled acquisitions since then. Related GAO Work: GAO-18-627: Federal Acquisitions: Congress and the Executive Branch Have Taken Steps to Address Key Issues, but Challenges Endure Released: September 2018 [ Background Music ] [ Bill Woods: ] Acquisition reform has been on everyone's agenda for many, many years, decades. [ Matt Oldham: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm Matt Oldham. In 2007, a Congressional Advisory Panel identified ways the government could save money as it buys goods and services. More than 10 years later, GAO looked at how federal agencies have responded to the key issues brought up by this advisory panel. I'm with Bill Woods, a director on our Contracting and National Security Acquisitions team, and we're talking about what GAO found. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me, Bill. [ Bill Woods: ] It's a pleasure to be here, Matt. [ Matt Oldham: ] So how has the work of the Acquisition Advisory Panel changed the federal acquisitions landscape over the past decade? [ Bill Woods: ] Acquisition reform has been on everyone's agenda for many, many years, decades. There have been proposals in the Congress. There have been changes to the regulations. This has been a very, very active area for a long time. What the panel did is to bring together experts in the area, people that have been studying acquisition issues and have been at the forefront of acquisition reform for a number of years and really brought focus to that issue. They came up with 89 very specific recommendations to help agencies target their efforts at really changing the system. [ Matt Oldham: ] This is a big undertaking. I mean we're talking about acquisitions across the federal government and we're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. Are some challenges more common to agencies than others? [ Bill Woods: ] Certainly. We found, and the panel found, that there are a number of areas, several areas, where agencies tend to struggle. One is in the requirements definition process of actually deciding what is it does the agency want? What do we need and what's the best way of getting what we need? The second area that agencies tend to struggle in is competition. How do we get enough vendors interested in fulfilling our requirement that we can have a robust competition, that we can really drive the best solutions, that we can get the best price for those solutions possible? And then the third area that's common to agencies is contract oversight. Once the contract is awarded, then the problem becomes, how do we make sure that that contractor actually delivers and satisfies the customer and we get what we want at the price we agreed to pay? [ Matt Oldham: ] So what risks do we run if these three common areas aren't addressed? [ Bill Woods: ] The biggest risk is the agency does not get the goods and services they need to fulfill their mission, on time, and on budget. It's the greatest risk for our military frankly. When we deploy forces, we have to rely on our vendors to provide fuel, for example, or munitions, or supplies, food, et cetera, on time, in the right places at the right time and on budget. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] So it sounds like some of the 89 recommendations raised by the Advisory Panel have been addressed by federal agencies, but some challenges remain. Bill, your report has recommendations coming from related GAO works. Could you give me an example or two of those? [ Bill Woods: ] Sure. As you said, the panel had 89 recommendations. We did not track every single one of those recommendations. What we did is to bucket those into a number of areas that we have found over the years are very common to most agencies. And those are the requirements definition, competition, and pricing. Then we went back and looked at the huge body of work that GAO has conducted over the years, some before the panel, some after the panel, and tried to tie our recommendations by GAO to the panel's recommendations. And we found a mixed story, frankly. Some of our recommendations had been implemented by the federal agencies. Others were still outstanding. So that's why we decided in titling our report to say that the issues that both we and the panel have identified endure to this day. [ Matt Oldham: ] So, lastly, Bill, what do you believe is the bottom line of your report? [ Bill Woods: ] The bottom line is that there's more work to be done. The Congress and federal agencies have been very, very robust in their efforts, very diligent in paying attention to acquisition reform issues. But if history is any guide, that story is going to continue to play out over the years to come. [ Matt Oldham: ] Bill Woods is a director on our Contracting and National Security Acquisitions team, and he was talking about a report looking into progress made with federal acquisitions over the past 10 years. Thank you for your time, Bill. [ Bill Woods: ] Thank you, Matt. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at gao.gov.