Lack of access to technical data is a major barrier to competition at the Defense Department, concludes a Government Accountability Office report.

In nearly 60 percent of 47 noncompetitive Defense contracts examined by the GAO, the department was essentially stuck with a certain contractor since it lacked technical data behind the goods and services it has been purchasing.

It's a situation that contractors haven't been entirely loathe to part with. In one case, a contractor informed an Air Force missile program that it would cost $30,000 merely to put together a cost estimate for its technical data package, the GAO report states. The contractor later said it would part with the technical data for $31 million, but wouldn't sell the rights to critical software, which was proprietary to the contractor.

In another case, a contractor with a $4.8 billion sustainment and support contract told the Air Force that purchasing the data rights would cost the service more than $1.3 billion.

The situation the government finds itself in is a result of decisions made years, if not decades ago, when cost pressures pushed the military not to buy the technical data packages at the onset of a weapons system acquisition. Some of the procurement officials interviewed by GAO auditors also blame a lack of access to technical data to acquisition procedures for commercial items. Procurement officials told the GAO the government "lacks leverage" in commercial acquisitions.

The Defense Department and other government agencies use commercial item acquisition in an attempt to avoid the many other problems that come with procuring custom-made goods, such as high costs and lack of innovation.

In any case, even when technical data is not an issue, the military may have little choice but to rely on the contractors that were the original equipment manufacturers of a weapons system, the GAO report states.  

For example, the Army awarded a noncompetitive engineering contract for its Hellfire missile program despite the fact that a technical data package has been developed. But, the vendor in question has worked on the program since 1994, and so has unique expertise with the missile.

For more:
- download the report, GAO-10-833 (.pdf)

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