Legislation pending before the Senate would reorganize management in the Department of Defense and create a powerful new under secretary position overseeing business operations, personnel and IT projects.
A provision in the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would create an Under Secretary of Defense for Business Management and Information, merging the duties of the Deputy Chief Management Officer (DCMO) and Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO).
If passed, the new office would become the third ranking position in the DoD, beneath the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense.
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The new Under Secretary would be responsible for day-to-day business operations, creating a strategic plan and performance policies for employees and overseeing IT investments.
The new position is similar to one proposed by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in the December 2013 Strategic Choices and Management Review, which plotted a course toward streamlining DoD operations and cutting budgets by 20 percent.
“Included in the Strategic Choices and Management Review was a comprehensive look at savings that could be achieved by reducing overhead throughout the department and streamlining organizations, including OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] and the Joint Staff,” Hagel said when the review was released. “I announced this summer that DoD would reduce major headquarters’ operating budgets by 20 percent over the next five years. These reductions are only a first step in DoD’s efforts to realign defense spending to meet new fiscal realities and strategic priorities.”
The change would not go into effect until February 2017. In the meantime, the bill actually codifies the OCIO for the first time, having to first establish the position before it can be referenced in the reorganization.
A spokesman for the DoD said the department is tracking the bill but declined to comment on how it would be implemented until the changes are passed.
Beth McGrath, a former DCMO currently working as a director at Deloitte Consulting, is strongly in favor of the NDAA reorganization plan.
“It’s somewhat of a next step when you look at what Secretary Hagel has already done,” she said. “He’s already positioning for more of a single voice and a consolidation.”
McGrath sees the objectives of the two offices as complementary.
“For me they’re not necessarily distinct: IT is an enabler of many different outcomes, some being business focused and some being mission,” she said. “We were looking across the whole of the IT space to make sure we were more synergistic than operating separately. The DCMO office and the CIO office do so many things together already that, to me, it’s not unnatural at all.”
