The Defense Department's central purchasing agency isn't buying or managing its information technology (IT) assets to ensure against overruns and delays, according to the General Accounting Office (GAO), Congress' watchdog agency. In a report to congressional armed forces committees, GAO says the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) is still failing to meet management standards despite a congressional directive six years ago to assure that IT investments would meet both business needs and cost and time expectations.

The DLA manages about four million supply items (around 330 million transactions annually), supplying around $15.2 billion worth of goods to the U.S. armed forces. With the volume and far-flung nature of its operations, the agency relies extensively on IT to perform its mission, GAO says. Noting a 1996 law requiring federal agencies to implement IT management procedures, GAO says the DLA "currently finds itself without some of the capabilities that it needs to ensure that its mix of IT investments best meets the agency's mission and business priorities."

Although critical of the DLA, the report does credit the agency with taking some positive steps toward implementing "critical processes" for IT investment.

Earlier this year, GAO reported that DLA was buying software in ways that mean the agency's IT projects "will be at risk of not delivering promised capabilities on time and within budget." The agency is taking steps to correct this weakness, GAO says.

What DLA still lacks, the report concludes, is a "process improvement plan that is endorsed and supported by agency leadership."