	Background

DOD’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSADBU) is responsible for the mentor-protege program. Also, OSADBU requested that the Defense Contract Management Command (DCMC) conduct performance reviews of all mentor-protege agreements approved since the program’s inception, and thereafter, to review all active agreements annually. Manner of Obligating Funds Has Changed

The funding appropriated from fiscal year 1992 to 1998 was generally obligated through either cooperative agreements, separate contracts, or in a line item in DOD prime contracts. While OSADBU has managed cooperative agreements in the past, it has decided that the services and the defense agencies should be responsible for managing reimbursable mentor-protege agreements. Conclusion

After spending over $200 million on the pilot mentor-protege program, OSADBU does not know the overall extent to which the program is achieving the purposes Congress has established because sufficient and reliable information on program performance is unavailable. While OSADBU has initiated an assessment of the program by conducting a survey and establishing a performance review process, shortcomings in the assessment will limit its usefulness. For example, a low survey response rate will limit the usefulness of its findings in assessing the program’s overall effectiveness. DOD acknowledges that the services have been inconsistent in their policies on paying fees to mentors for providing assistance to proteges and reimbursing proteges for various expenses. We focused our review on the management of the program. We attempted to assess the extent to which the funds benefited the proteges by reviewing OSADBU’s files and contacting service and defense agency officials to identify the number of mentors and proteges that have participated in the program. GAO Comments

1. 2. 3.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) Pilot Mentor-Protege Program, focusing on: (1) DOD's management of the program, including its efforts to evaluate the program's effectiveness; and (2) the manner in which program funds have been obligated.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) data limitations preclude GAO's assessing the extent to which the program is achieving the purpose established by Congress; (2) the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSADBU) has recently undertaken actions to review the program that were intended to provide the basis for such an assessment; (3) it has initiated a survey of mentors and proteges and enlisted the Defense Contract Management Command to conduct performance evaluations of each agreement; (4) however, GAO believes shortcomings in the survey methodology and incomplete coverage in the performance evaluations will limit the usefulness of their results in assessing the program's overall effectiveness; (5) Congress has appropriated about $233 million for the program since fiscal year 1992; (6) the funding was generally obligated through either cooperative agreements, separate contracts, or line items in DOD prime contracts; (7) while OSADBU has managed cooperative agreements in the past, it has decided that the services and the defense agencies should be responsible for managing reimbursable mentor-protege agreements; (8) the services have been inconsistent in their policies on paying fees to mentors for providing assistance to proteges and reimbursing proteges for various expenses; and (9) because sufficient and reliable information on program performance was unavailable, the overall extent to which the pilot program benefited the proteges could not be assessed.