GAO: Procurement database unreliable despite upgrade
New system is also difficult to use, auditors find.
A major upgrade to the government's repository of information on prime contracts has yet to deliver promised enhancements in data quality and user-friendliness, a Government Accountability Office official said Tuesday.
The Federal Procurement Data System--Next Generation, as the latest version of the 27-year-old database managed by the General Services Administration is known, also lacks the flexibility to capture information on the use of interagency contracts, said Katherine Schinasi, managing director for acquisition and sourcing management at GAO. She offered her assessment in a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua Bolten.
To minimize mistakes from manual transmissions, agencies are to submit data to FPDS-NG electronically through "contract writing systems." But in the nearly two years since the upgraded database has been available for government use, 10 percent of agencies with contract writing systems have not yet connected them to FPDS-NG, Schinasi said.
The Defense Department falls in that 10 percent and won't be fully connected until some time in fiscal 2006, Schinasi wrote. "Given that Defense Department data represent about 60 percent of the contracting actions that will be captured within FPDS-NG, this delay significantly affects the ability of FPDS-NG to reflect timely and accurate procurement data," she said.
GAO analysts attending a training session hosted by Global Computer Enterprises, the Reston, Va.-based technology services company holding a contract to revamp the database for GSA, found the upgraded system cumbersome, Schinasi said. Since December 2004, the public has been able to use FPDS-NG to generate either standard or ad hoc reports.
"We did not find either easy to use," Schinasi wrote. "We repeatedly encountered significant performance problems, including system time-outs and delays, when trying to generate both kinds of reports."
"While the ad hoc reporting capability is a potentially useful new feature that allows users to create their own reports, it takes time and effort to build a customized report query, which then cannot be saved and must be rebuilt every time this feature is utilized," she continued. GSA also has failed to respond to "repeated requests" to create governmentwide procurement reports, GAO said.
In a response to Schinasi's review, GSA officials said they planned to enhance FPDS-NG's ad hoc reporting capabilities, and would start generating governmentwide reports. Some of the changes could come early in fiscal 2006, they told GAO.
GSA did not, however, commit to modifying FPDS-NG to allow for the gathering of data on interagency contracts. Such agreements can take the form of multiple award schedules, governmentwide acquisition contracts or interagency acquisition services provided for a fee. GAO has placed them on its annual list of "high risk" management practices because they present significant oversight challenges.
But "total spending using other agencies' contracting vehicles and services is unknown because there is currently no system that tracks and reports this information," Schinasi wrote. GSA will alter FPDS-NG to collect such data if the Office of Management and Budget makes that request, officials told GAO.