Under DHS, the INS mission has been split between three bureaus within  the department, and the INS procurement organization will continue to  procure goods and services under the Bureau of Immigration and Customs  Enforcement. In fiscal year 2002, INS contracted for $1.7 billion in goods and services. INS Lacks the Infrastructure Needed to Manage Its Procurement Activities Effectively

INS does not have in place a basic infrastructure to effectively manage its  contracts. INS has not  developed a strategic acquisition workforce plan to help ensure that  acquisition personnel across the agency have the right skills and that gaps  in the workforce are addressed proactively. Further, INS has not made effective use of cross-functional teams— consisting of procurement, program, legal, budget, and financial  representatives—throughout the acquisition process. INS Lacks Information It Needs to Make Strategic Procurement Decisions

INS managers are unable to make strategic procurement decisions  because they do not have sufficient information about the goods and  services being procured across the agency and who their major vendors  are. INS’s Acquisition Workforce Is Inadequate to Manage Increased Workload

INS’s mission and overall workforce have expanded greatly in the past  decade, and spending on contracts has also increased significantly. Further, the agency has not been able to fill many  of its existing vacancies. Acquisition Planning, Competition, and Contractor Monitoring Have Been Inadequate in Some Cases

Our review of 42 contracts, randomly selected from a total of 185 active  contracts awarded by headquarters and each administrative center, found  that INS did not adequately plan for several of its large acquisitions or  effectively involve key stakeholders, such as the program and legal offices. In some cases, this lack of advanced planning and collaboration limited  opportunities for full and open competition. Further, INS did not  consistently monitor contractor performance on many of the contracts we  reviewed, meaning that INS could not be assured that it received the goods  and services it paid for or that the contractors met the quality standards in  the contract. We did not find significant or widespread compliance  problems with FAR requirements and INS’s own acquisition policies in the  areas of market research, evaluation of contractors’ proposals,  documentation of source selection decisions, and contract modifications. INS, one of the largest agencies coming under DHS, brings with  it a procurement function that needs attention. Its acquisition workforce is  struggling to effectively manage the large and mission-critical  procurements for which it is responsible. The creation of DHS brings an  opportunity to address these problems. To improve the effectiveness of the procurement function, we recommend  that the Under Secretary for Management    ensure that cross-functional acquisition teams, consisting of program,  procurement, legal, budget, and financial officials, effectively  collaborate in planning and administering contracts;    create and review meaningful procurement performance measures and  indicators to ensure that management directives are carried out by the  large number of field activities in the department; and    as part of its assessment of existing information systems coming into  the department, determine what procurement and financial information  must be gathered to obtain strategic knowledge of spending behavior  across the department. To determine if INS has followed sound contracting policies and  regulations, we reviewed 42 of 185 contracts on INS’s active contracts list.
Why GAO Did This Study

With annual obligations for goods and services totaling $1.7 billion, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is one of the largest of 23 entities coming into the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). INS's procurement organization will continue to acquire goods and services under DHS. GAO was asked to review INS's contracting processes to assess whether INS has an adequate infrastructure to manage its acquisitions and to determine whether INS is following sound contracting policies and procedures in awarding and managing individual contracts.

What GAO Found

INS does not have the basic infrastructure--including oversight, information, and an acquisition workforce--in place to ensure that its contracting activity is effective. Oversight of procurement is difficult because procurement managers are placed at a low level within the organization, and they do not have the leverage to hold employees across the agency accountable for compliance with procurement policies. Further, procurement activities are not coordinated well because INS has not made effective use of cross-functional teams--consisting of procurement, program, budget, financial, and legal representatives--throughout the acquisition process. Procurement managers are unable to make strategic decisions that would allow them to maximize spending power across the agency because INS's information systems do not provide visibility into what is being spent agencywide for goods and services and who the major vendors are. INS's acquisition workforce is struggling to manage effectively large and mission-critical procurements. Despite growth in mission requirements and the overall workforce during the past decade, the agency has not been able to attract and retain the necessary contracting staff. Further, INS lacks a strategic acquisition workforce plan to help identify the knowledge, skills, and abilities the agency needs to ensure it can meet current and future requirements. In addition, acquisition planning, competition, and contractor monitoring have been inadequate on some large contracts. The lack of adequate advanced planning for several detention center contracts and one large information technology management contract limited opportunities for full and open competition. Contractor performance monitoring has, in some cases, been inadequate to provide assurance that INS received the goods or services it paid for or that quality standards were met. GAO did not find significant or widespread compliance problems with other contract criteria we reviewed. Because INS has become a significant part of DHS and brings with it a procurement function that needs attention, it is imperative for DHS leadership to address these problems early in the development of the new department.