The Pentagon has not adequately outlined its system for identifying and developing joint requirements, a problem that raises long-term questions about whether it will be able to sustain the progress being made under the current initiative, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report Friday.
The guidance provided by the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) for the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) is insufficiently clear and not always documented, thereby affecting the ability of the Pentagon to consistently identify the most important capability needs, GAO said.
“Until the Joint Staff takes steps to fully develop, document, and institutionalize the new analytic approach, it is not clear whether the current momentum for improving the JCIDS process will be sustained,” the report said.
The guidance issued by the Joint Staff in January does not clearly require program sponsors to report on the individual criteria for key sustainment metrics, GAO said. The agency said that with declining budgets, the need to prioritize among capability gaps and maximize the use of resources becomes more pronounced.
“In order for it to achieve the intended results of prioritizing capability needs and aligning those needs with available resources, the Joint Staff needs to take steps to fully develop the approach and document it more explicitly,” the report said.
The Joint Staff said it its response it is continuously working to refine the process and is receiving input to improve prioritization and make informed decisions on which gaps are most critical. As for the criteria for key sustainment metrics, the Pentagon said they are intended to be a “shaping” mechanism that have to take the uniqueness of each program into account.
“There were not designed to be prescriptive,” the department said. “Each program is unique, and criteria applicable to one program may not be applicable to another.”