Agencies Need to Address Significant Weaknesses in Policies and Practices
July 27, 2012
What GAO Found
While the eight agencies GAO reviewed—the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, Labor, and Veterans Affairs, and the Environmental Protection Agency—varied in the extent to which their cost-estimating policies and procedures addressed best practices, most had significant weaknesses. For example, six of the eight agencies had established a clear requirement for programs to develop life-cycle cost estimates. However, most of the eight agencies’ policies lacked requirements for cost-estimating training, a standard structure for defining work products, and a central, independent cost-estimating team, among other things.