April 19, 2006

Information Technology Support Services at the Department of Energy's Operating Contractors

Several issues detracted from the Department of Energy's or Acquired Services (Department's) ability to effectively manage and control contractor information technology (IT) support service costs. In particular, we noted that contractors usually did not take advantage of opportunities to obtain volume discounts by aggregating demand for services. Overall per user support costs varied significantly between and among contractor operated facilities. In many instances, we also observed that contractor management and Federal officials responsible for assessing performance lacked visibility over the component cost of IT support services because contractors did not actively capture or track all components of those costs at the detail level.