Reversing course, Pentagon says it fully supports restructuring of its acquisition bureaucracy

Last week, the Pentagon met the letter of the law by turning in a report to Congress on how it plans to implement one of its largest organizational changes in decades: the bifurcation of the current office of the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology  and logistics (AT&L) and the creation of a new chief management officer.

But the report — a two-page memo from Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work — offers scant detail about where the department is headed with the reorganization. That’s perhaps understandable, since Congress handed DoD the task of restructuring itself during a presidential transition and when virtually all of its Senate-confirmed leadership posts are empty.

Still, there are a few interesting tidbits in the interim report, a final version of which is due to the Hill by Aug. 1. For instance, DoD says it may ask Congress to elevate the new chief management officer role to a higher-ranking position: an undersecretary for management. Congress actually did that in the 2016 Defense authorization bill, but then repealed the change with the 2017 bill, when House-Senate negotiators settled on the position of CMO instead.

Continue reading: http://federalnewsradio.com/dod-reporters-notebook-jared-serbu/2017/03/reversing-course-pentagon-says-fully-supports-restructuring-acquisition-bureucracy/