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The ICS Falls Short of Meeting Congressional and DoD Stakeholder Needs

• ICS data are collected using various methods and data sources, calling into question their accuracy and thoroughness.
• The format in which ICS data are reported to Congress is not useful and hinders the data's potential utility for analyses and decisionmaking. The data also fail to meet the needs of DoD stakeholders responsible for workforce planning and budgetary decisions.
• In its current state, the ICS fails to meet congressional goals, which include strengthening oversight of DoD's contract practices, maximizing the use of competitive procurement processes, improving contractor performance, leveraging buying power, and accurately forecasting DoD labor and budget needs for in-house and contracted services.

There Are Alternative Data Sources for Meeting These Needs

• The ICS collects information on contractor direct labor hours, or the time spent working by the contractor employees assigned to the contract, either estimated or provided by the contractors themselves. These data may be inaccurate and fail to support the types of analyses needed for decisionmaking.
• Alternative metrics are at least as accurate and may be produced more quickly and at a much lower cost because they draw on existing data sources.
• Three alternative metrics, in particular, could better inform analyses to support congressional and DoD stakeholder decisionmaking: (1) estimates of civilian labor in the form of full-time equivalents, (2) estimates of contractor labor in the form of full-time equivalents, and (3) estimates of contract employees as a proportion of overall contractor revenue.