The Defense Department and GAO Recommendations

The Government Accountability Office released an analysis of how well the Defense Department has done in complying with the recommendations GAO made between fiscal years 2001 and 2008, and the results are fairly interesting, at least in the human capital arena. In that time period, GAO made 3,099 recommendations overall. The Department implemented 60.6 percent of those recommendations, made a decision not to implement 12 percent of them, and has yet to act on 27 percent of them. The rates of implementation on personnel issues were lower: 56 percent of the 273 recommendations that dealt with personnel were implemented, 14.7 percent were not implemented, and 29 percent of them are still open.

And I thought that some of the areas where there are high rates of non-action by the Defense Department were interesting. Among the reports where many issues remain open: "Military Personnel: Federal Management of Servicemember Employment Rights Can Be Further Improved," "Military Personnel: Progress Made in Implementing Recommendations to Reduce Domestic Violence, but Further Management Action Needed ," "Military Personnel: DOD's and the Coast Guard's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Programs Face Implementation and Oversight Challenges," and "Military Personnel: Top Management Attention Is Needed to Address Long-standing Problems with Determining Medical and Physical Fitness of the Reserve Force."

All of these reports tap into difficult cultural issues, whether it's the questions of how standards have been stretched to meet difficult recruiting goals, or the fact that more than most employers, the Defense Department needs to be involved in the domestic lives' of certain classes of its employees, or some historical problems of sexual violence. But just because these issues are substantially challenging doesn't mean that the recommendations surrounding them should be allowed to linger.