The National Nuclear Security Administration must better establish guidance for contractor oversight using information from contractor assurance systems (CAS), according to a Government Accountability Office report released publicly yesterday. In 2011 the NNSA asked its seven M&O contractors to implement the systems both to assure their own performance and to provide for enhanced NNSA oversight. However, NNSA has not put standards in place to ensure oversight is consistent. “For example, at the headquarters level, NNSA has not provided guidance beyond its general framework for assessing the maturity of contractors’ CAS to determine whether information from CAS is sufficiently reliable for federal oversight purposes,” the report states. “In the absence of headquarters level policy, NNSA field offices—federal offices located at contractor operated sites and responsible for day-to-day oversight of M&O contractors—have established their own procedures for using information from CAS to conduct oversight, but these procedures also are not always complete and differ among field offices.”
The GAO included several recommendations for the NNSA that aim to improve effectiveness of its oversight. That includes establishing “comprehensive” guidance “for using information from CAS to conduct oversight of M&O contractors, clarifying whether CAS is to cover mission-related activities, and describing how to conduct assessments of risk, CAS maturity, and the level of the contractor’s past performance,” the report states. NNSA should also work with field office managers to establish procedures “consistent with headquarters policy and guidance to support assessment practices for determining appropriate oversight approaches,” it recommends. The NNSA has agreed to implement the GAO’s recommendations.
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