OTHER TRANSACTION AGREEMENTS: DOD Can Improve Planning for Consortia Awards

Despite DOD’s increased use of consortia-based OTAs in recent years, DOD and decision makers have limited insight into these OTAs, including who receives them. We and the DOD Inspector General previously recommended that DOD provide additional guidance and greater transparency and oversight to help manage the risks associated with consortia-based OTAs. For example, certain consortia-based OTAs include the performance of functions that may have an increased risk of inappropriate influence of contractors over government decisions. We discuss DOD’s actions to address our prior recommendations later in this report. Congressional decision makers have also noted that information on DOD’s use of consortia-based OTAs is limited. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 required DOD to begin maintaining a publicly available list of consortia used by DOD.