The Social Security Administration (SSA) has spent billions on IT modernization and planning over the past five years. Still, it has failed to maintain reliable and sufficient information on its contractors necessary to fully adapt to recent White House executive orders, a federal watchdog found.
That lack of information on contracting officer workloads – and a training plan for acquisition staff that hasn’t been updated since 2019 – has led to limited progress in addressing the agency’s IT acquisition workforce needs, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a Sept. 15 report.
“The [SSA] is responsible for delivering services that touch the lives of virtually every American,” the report says. “The agency relies extensively on IT hardware and software to carry out its core mission. SSA’s acquisition workforce, which includes contracting officers and contracting officer’s representatives (COR), plays a key role in overseeing and managing IT acquisitions that support the agency.”
SSA’s Office of Acquisition and Grants (OAG), which oversees contracting officers and CORs, has limited data on officer workloads needed to accurately assess staffing needs, officials said, noting that information on contract assignments was unreliable and contained multiple discrepancies and duplicate entries.
These errors specifically impacted CORs overseeing hardware and service contracts, which didn’t include information on contract complexity, unlike more detailed software contracts.
Limited information may also impact SSA’s ability to successfully apply recent executive orders from the White House ordering certain IT procurement activities to be moved under the General Services Administration (GSA) and directing a reduction in force, GAO officials said.
“As SSA implements recent executive orders and related guidance, develops its reorganization plans, and determines the extent to which procurement activities will be transferred to the General Services Administration, SSA officials acknowledged that they will also need to reassess its COR staffing needs to ensure it can accomplish its future goals,” the report says.
Officials also noted that without more information on CORs, the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) “might have difficulty determining whether its CORs can support its current and future IT contracting needs.”
Those executive orders may also affect how OAG staff are trained, GAO said that SSA’s existing training plan for acquisition staff has not been updated since 2019, and that going forward, “SSA’s implementation of executive orders and related guidance is ongoing and could affect contracting officers’ workloads and opportunities for training.”
That lack of training has resulted in competency gaps in senior-level contracting officers who specifically fell short in understanding “contracting principles,” GAO said, with no clear prioritization to update that plan with current agency reorganization efforts.
“Given the time since the last training plan update in 2019 and ongoing organizational changes, it is unclear that SSA will prioritize the implementation of trainings to address the acquisitions-related competency gaps identified,” said GAO.
“Developing and implementing a training plan that addresses the acquisitions-related competency gaps identified for contracting officers, including those who support IT contracts, remains vital as it would help OAG ensure that its contracting officers have the skills to support SSA’s current and future IT contracting needs,” officials continued.
GAO recommended that SSA assess and document contracting officer and COR staffing needs based on quality workload data, as well as develop and implement a new training plan that addresses competency gaps. SSA agreed with the recommendations.