Military Personnel: Air National Guard Has Taken Steps to Improve
the Reliability of Personnel Strength Data, but More Needs to Be 
Done (31-JUL-07, GAO-07-1138R). 				 
                                                                 
In September 2004, the Air National Guard (ANG) discovered	 
inaccuracies in its personnel strength data for recruits with no 
prior service assigned to pay groups F (attending Initial Active 
Duty Training, or IADT) and P (awaiting IADT). Specifically,	 
these data did not reflect an accurate accounting of the number  
of recruits in pay groups F and P. Those recruits attending IADT 
work full-time and are paid accordingly (pay group F), while	 
recruits waiting to attend IADT receive pay on a part-time basis 
at the rate of four drills per month (pay group P). The pay for  
those attending IADT is much higher than for those waiting to	 
attend IADT, so the effect of miscoding the pay groups on ANG's  
budget estimates can be considerable. In May 2007, we reported to
Congress that although ANG has taken reasonable steps to correct 
the errors in its personnel strength data, some problems still	 
exist with a key quality assurance tool (the Status Report Card  
process) and with the reliability of the alternate data being	 
reported while the inaccuracies are addressed. The purpose of	 
this correspondence is to inform Congress of the additional steps
we believe that ANG needs to take to ensure the reliability of	 
the personnel strength data being reported for the two pay	 
groups. 							 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-07-1138R					        
    ACCNO:   A73750						        
  TITLE:     Military Personnel: Air National Guard Has Taken Steps to
Improve the Reliability of Personnel Strength Data, but More	 
Needs to Be Done						 
     DATE:   07/31/2007 
  SUBJECT:   Budget controllability				 
	     Data integrity					 
	     Erroneous payments 				 
	     Internal controls					 
	     Military training					 
	     Monitoring 					 
	     National Guard					 
	     Pay						 
	     Statistical data					 

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GAO-07-1138R

   

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August 1, 2007

The Honorable Thomas F. Hall

The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs

Subject: Military Personnel: Air National Guard Has Taken Steps to Improve
the Reliability of Personnel Strength Data, but More Needs to Be Done

Dear Secretary Hall:

In September 2004, the Air National Guard (ANG) discovered inaccuracies in
its personnel strength data for recruits with no prior service assigned to
pay groups F (attending Initial Active Duty Training, or IADT) and P
(awaiting IADT).^1 Specifically, these data did not reflect an accurate
accounting of the number of recruits in pay groups F and P. Those recruits
attending IADT work full-time and are paid accordingly (pay group F),
while recruits waiting to attend IADT receive pay on a part-time basis at
the rate of four drills per month (pay group P). The pay for those
attending IADT is much higher^2 than for those waiting to attend IADT, so
the effect of miscoding the pay groups on ANG's budget estimates can be
considerable.

In May 2007, we reported to Congress^3 that although ANG has taken
reasonable steps to correct the errors in its personnel strength data,
some problems still exist with a key quality assurance tool (the Status
Report Card process) and with the reliability of the alternate data being
reported while the inaccuracies are addressed.

The purpose of this correspondence is to inform you of the additional
steps we believe that ANG needs to take to ensure the reliability of the
personnel strength data being reported for the two pay groups.

To prepare this correspondence, we drew upon the work from our May 2007
issue paper. As part of that examination, we gathered and analyzed
information provided by ANG's Manpower and Personnel Office on the actions
ANG has completed. We reviewed applicable guidance^4 to determine if it
was adequate to ensure greater accuracy by the local units in updating the
student records for recruits with no prior service to ensure that they
were being correctly categorized into either pay group F or P. We reviewed
documentation for the three systems change requests, including evidence
that the systems change requests had been implemented, to determine
whether these changes would automate processes currently being performed
manually by the local units that were resulting in the data reliability
errors. We also reviewed the statistical analysis software code used by
ANG to produce the Status Report Card to determine the effectiveness of
this mechanism in identifying errors and to assess the reliability of the
Status Report Cards being generated. We reviewed a spreadsheet that ANG
had prepared that showed the difference between the data being reported in
the Reserve Component Common Personnel Data System for the actual end
strength for pay groups F and P for fiscal year 2006 and what ANG
officials described as comparable data for fiscal year 2006 from alternate
sources (e.g., the Military Personnel Data System). Because this
correspondence focuses on steps taken by ANG, we did not interview
officials from the Air Education and Training Command, which owns and
manages the alternate data reported. In conducting this work, we held
discussions with cognizant officials from ANG and the Office of the
Assistant Secretary of Defense (Reserve Affairs) to confirm the results of
our work and to obtain explanations for any discrepancies noted. Agency
officials concurred with our findings.

^1IADT is given to recruits who have and have not served in the military
before. Recruits who have not previously served and have not attended IADT
are not considered fully qualified to carry out their mission
responsibilities and therefore are not deployable.

^2An ANG official estimated that for fiscal year 2007, the pay for each
person in pay group F will amount to about $14,410 and the pay for each
person in pay group P will amount to about $3,600.

^3Budget Justification Review of the Reliability of the Air National
Guard's Personnel Strength Data, May 22, 2007. The objective of budget
justification reviews is to provide pertinent and timely information to
Congress about the President's proposed budget for specific programs.
GAO's budget justification review guidance limits the distribution of
these reviews' results papers to congressional committees and staff.

We relied on the work described above, which we performed to produce our
May 2007 issue paper, as we wrote this correspondence. This work was
performed from June 2007 through July 2007 under the statutory authority
of the Comptroller General to conduct evaluations on his own initiative
and in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

ANG Has Taken Steps to Correct Data Errors, but Additional Steps Are
Needed to Ensure Data Reliability

ANG has taken reasonable steps to correct the errors in its personnel
strength data for recruits with no prior service; however, there are
additional steps ANG needs to take to ensure the reliability of the
personnel strength data for the pay groups. In January 2006, ANG
established its Status Report Card process to monitor the number of errors
that occurred at the local unit level in updating the student status codes
for training that affects the pay group (F or P). The Status Report Card
includes data on the number of errors detected in each local unit's
records for recruits in pay groups F and P, and assigns each unit a grade
ranging from A through F, with A representing the least number of errors
and F representing the greatest number of errors. ANG officials stated
that this process has had a positive impact on the units' data accuracy,
since the total number of errors has declined. ANG reported that the
number of errors at the inception of the Status Report Card process was
1,431 and that as of February 2007 the number was 531.

^4Air National Guard, Assignments Within the Air National Guard, Air
National Guard Instruction 36-2101, June 11, 2004; Air National Guard
Directorate of Personnel and Training, Guide for Student Flight Initial
Classification Actions and Training Status Codes, April 25, 2005; Air
Force Instruction 36-2101, Classifying Military Personnel (Officer and
Enlisted), March 7, 2006; and Air Force Instruction 36-2201 (Volume 3),
Air Force Training Program On The Job Training Administration, December
20, 2006.

While these steps may have reduced errors in the data, ANG still cannot
ensure the reliability of its personnel strength data because it has not
followed federal internal control standards. Federal internal control
standards state that documentation should exist and be readily available
for review by others to allow an independent evaluation. ^5 Federal
internal control standards also require that data control activities, such
as edit checks, verifications, and reconciliations, be conducted and
documented to ensure the reliability of the data.^6 However, ANG has not
(1) documented the process, so it cannot ensure that it is operating as
intended; (2) established controls to ensure that data fields in the
statistical analysis software code that require updates are being updated
before the Status Report Card is generated each month; or (3) ensured the
reliability of the alternate data used to generate the Status Report Card.
In addition, ANG has not taken steps to ensure the reliability of the
alternate personnel strength data being reported^7 until the errors from
the official data source (Reserve Component Common Personnel Data System)
were corrected.^8 ANG officials stated that they did not validate the
alternate data being reported in the interim nor confirm that internal
control procedures had been established to ensure the reliability of these
data.

The Branch Chief for Strength Management and Data Analysis stated that the
focus was on implementing fixes to solve the problem, not on adequately
documenting the Status Report Card process. This official said that the
process lacks control activities, such as edit checks, because the
available staff did not understand that they needed to establish these
controls or how to do so. The official explained that ANG did not verify
the alternate data because it is only an "end user," and the data are
owned and managed by the Air Education and Training Command. Nonetheless,
these officials are using these alternate data to determine the accuracy
of the Reserve Component Common Personnel Data System data for pay groups
F and P. Moreover, the official said that ANG did not have the means or
the understanding to test the reliability of the alternate data. This
official also stated that the Status Report Card process, suspended in
March 2007, will resume after the Student Flight Guide has been revised to
reflect the impact of the systems change requests and the process has been
reviewed to ensure that it is an acceptable means for measuring
performance.

Until ANG documents how the Status Report Card process is intended to
perform, its effectiveness as a monitoring tool is questionable. Likewise,
unless ANG validates its alternate data, it cannot reasonably assure the
users of the data that they are reliable. As a result, decision makers
within the Department of Defense and Congress may not have accurate and
complete information to make informed decisions.

^5GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government,
GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1 (Washington, D.C.: November 1999).

^6GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1 and GAO, Assessing the Reliability of
Computer-Processed Data, GAO-02-15G (Washington, D.C.: September 2002).

^7ANG reported alternate data in its Official Guard and Reserve Manpower
Strength and Statistics report for pay groups F and P for fiscal years
2005 and 2006.

^8The Reserve Component Common Personnel Data System is the official data
source for manpower planning, strength accounting, and budgeting for
reserve components.

Recommendations for Executive Action

To ensure that ANG has reliable personnel strength data for these pay
groups, we recommend that you take steps to ensure that ANG (1) documents
the Status Report Card process, (2) establishes needed controls to ensure
that data fields are updated before the Status Report Card is generated
each month, and (3) in conjunction with the owners of the data (e.g., Air
Education and Training Command), verifies the reliability of the data used
to generate the Status Report Cards and the alternate data being reported.

We will make copies of this correspondence available to others upon
request. In addition, the correspondence will be available at no charge on
GAO's Web site at [4]http://www.gao.gov . If you have any questions or
wish to discuss this material further, please contact me at (202) 512-5559
or [email protected]. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional
Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this
correspondence. GAO staff who made major contributions to the
correspondence are listed in enclosure I.

Enclosure I: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Derek B. Stewart (202) 512-5559 or [email protected]

Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact above, Cynthia Jackson, Assistant Director;
Renee S. Brown; Grace A. Coleman; Julia C. Matta; J. Paul Newton;
Rebecca Shea; and Dale O. Wineholt made key contributions to this
correspondence.

References

Visible links
4. http://www.gao.gov/
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