GAO supports Rumsfeld's DoD reforms

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 7, 2003 | by Martin Edwin Andersen

The efforts of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to change the Pentagon's business culture got something of a shot in the arm in December when the General Accounting Office (GAO) reported that his management-reform program "has the potential to be an effective mechanism for reform."

The report, Defense Management: New Management Reform Program Still Evolving, was commissioned by outgoing Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and the ranking Republican, John Warner of Virginia.

Although the Rumsfeld initiative has less emphasis on specific savings targets and most new reform initiatives have been small in order to produce benefits in fiscal year 2003, the GAO says, the new emphasis on high-level-management involvement and interservice participation bodes well for long-term prospects. However, the report offers a caveat: "The new management program does not yet have an overarching plan tying key reform efforts together in an integrated fashion."

MARTIN EDWIN ANDERSEN IS A REPORTER FOR Insight. READERS CAN REACH HIM WITH TIPS ON GOVERNMENTAL WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE OF POWER AT INSIGHTWATCHERS@AOL.COM