Defense Deputy Says Management Is Just Fine, Thank You Very Much

The Defense Department is the mighty beast of the bureaucracy.

The department's wartime budget is more than $700 billion this year. It has staff and operations in more than 3,000 places around the globe. Assets and liabilities are more than double the combined total for IBM, Wal-Mart and Exxon Mobil.

It's also no secret that management is a problem at Defense.

Political appointees and military leaders come and go. Weapons projects are often over budget and behind schedule. Even improvement takes time -- a comprehensive, clean financial audit is eight to 10 years away, for example.

Congress has repeatedly prodded the Pentagon to improve management practices, especially in programs that have been deemed at risk of waste or fraud by the Government Accountability Office. But, as Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) said yesterday, even some Pentagon programs to correct management problems have been designated "high risk" by GAO.

In a bid to fix recurring problems, Congress is looking at establishing a chief management officer in the department. House and Senate bills differ on details, and Skelton, who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, held a hearing yesterday to get a sense of what the Pentagon thinks of the proposals.

Not much, as it turned out.

Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England said he preferred the House bill, which would give the Pentagon more leeway in addressing management issues, to the Senate version, which would give England a deputy for management and require the armed services to make some management changes.

He added, "I don't believe, frankly, either bill is actually needed by the department."

In response to questions from Rep. Susan A. Davis (D-Calif.), England suggested that he would rather see his job recast as a chief operating officer, responsible for budgets, planning and general management and reporting to the defense secretary, the chief executive.

The chief operating officer's job should be held by someone with experience in running large, complex organizations, England said. Criteria could be written that would make responsibilities for the chief operating officer a part of the deputy secretary's position, he said.

"Having that role prescribed and then making sure you selected people that would fit that role would indeed by helpful in my judgment, going forward for the Department of Defense," he said.

England, a former corporate executive and a former secretary of the Navy, signaled broad opposition to inserting a new layer of management officials, saying that "the department already has a lot of structure" and too many rules. As an example, he said Defense officials have found 219 legislative and regulatory sections dealing with flag officers.

"Whenever there is an issue, we add something to it," England said. "After a while you just have a much larger bureaucracy that has to deal with all this."

Where possible, England suggested, the Pentagon should avoid centralized control of operations. "I am of a mind when it comes to management that less is better. That is, have the authority and responsibility but move it down as far in the organization as you can to hold people accountable, and we provide the top level of direction and the oversight."

England said, "The structure's not nearly as important as how you tie the structure together."

England chairs the Deputy's Advisory Working Group and the Defense Business Systems Management Committee. The groups, staffed with senior Defense officials, look across the department to focus on strategic and budget priorities, he said.

The issue of how to structure the management of the Defense Department should be left to the next White House and Defense secretary, England said. The next administration's approach, he said, should be explained to Congress "so when they confirm people they make sure they have the right mix of talents to do the job."

At the end of the day, "it is about a management team," England said. "It's not about this one office."