Defense has few partnerships with contractors at depots

The Defense Department's highly touted partnerships between contractors and military depots account for only about 2 percent of the $19 billion worth of work being done at the in-house repair centers, according to a new report from the General Accounting Office.

"DoD has engaged in a small number of public-private partnerships for depot maintenance, but to date, the number of such partnerships involves a relatively small portion of DoD's depot workload," said the report, "Public-Private Partnerships Have Increased, But Long-Term Growth and Results Are Uncertain" (GAO-03-423).

In fiscal 2002, the Army had 42 partnerships, the Navy had 31, the Air Force had 19 and the Marine Corps had only one. Partnerships are deals struck between the service's military depots and contractors to share work on repair jobs in cases where it can save money and improve efficiency. They have also been used as an antidote to federal laws that limit the amount of work that can be directly outsourced to contractors.

GAO said the Defense Department and contractors have come up with 14 characteristics for successful partnerships, including a long-term relationship and commitment and flexibility to change the scope of the partnership. But, GAO said, Defense has done little to measure whether the partnerships are working.

GAO also said it may be hard to expand partnerships in the future because some may have represented unique, one-time business arrangements; depots are not investing enough money to perform work on newer weapon systems; and the Pentagon has backed changes in federal law that would make it easier to outsource work.

GAO recommended that Defense develop ways to measure the effectiveness of all partnerships and find out whether depots are equipped to handle new weapon systems. Defense officials argued that they already have specific measures in place for judging individual partnership programs, but devising a common framework would not be helpful since partnerships are so varied. Defense also said it's already assessing how well depots could handle new weapons systems, but added a greater emphasis should be placed on determining the role partnerships will play in maintaining those systems.