September 30, 2014

Follow-up on The Department of Energy’s Acquisition and Maintenance of Software Licenses

The Department of Energy (Department) spends at least $1.4 billion per year on information technology to support its mission of ensuring the Nation's security and prosperity by addressing energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through science and technology solutions. To accomplish this mission, the Department's Federal employees and facility contractors rely on commercial-off-the-shelf software for a multitude of services, including office automation, document management, virtualization and engineering analysis. In January 2006, an Office of Inspector General report on the Management of the Department's Desktop Computer Software Enterprise License Agreements (DOE/IG-0718) found that the Department had not adequately managed the acquisition and maintenance of software licenses. The Office of Management and Budget recently issued guidance to promote sound strategic sourcing practices across the Federal government.

Although the Department had made progress in addressing our prior recommendations, we found that it had not adequately managed the acquisition and maintenance of computer software licenses. We determined that programs and sites routinely paid more than necessary when acquiring software licenses and generally had not maintained an inventory of software to assist with management of licenses. Our review of software purchase data revealed that for the limited range of software products we were able to evaluate, programs and sites spent approximately $600,000 more than necessary during a 3-year period. Additionally, the price per license paid by the Department was often greater than established government-wide acquisition contract prices available to all Federal agencies. Further, we found that while some sites had partially implemented software management systems since our prior report, none of the Federal and contractor sites visited were able to provide a complete inventory of software licenses. 

The issues identified occurred, in part, because the Department had not developed and implemented a fully effective strategy for acquiring and managing software licenses. Specifically, contrary to a 2011 Office of Management and Budget memorandum directing agencies to pool purchasing power to drive down costs and improve service, the Department continued to utilize a fragmented approach without a formal process for ensuring that software purchases were coordinated between Headquarters and/or field sites.
 

Topic: Management & Administration