Military Personnel: DMDC Data on Officers' Commissioning Programs
is Insufficiently Reliable and Needs to be Corrected (08-MAR-07, 
GAO-07-372R).							 
                                                                 
The Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) is a key Department of	 
Defense (DOD) support organization that, among other things,	 
generates reports for defense organizations such as the military 
services, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint  
Staff. External organizations such as GAO and federally funded	 
research and development centers also rely on DMDC for		 
quantitative data and analyses pertaining to a wide variety of	 
issues, including the numbers of DOD personnel in specified	 
occupations or demographic groups, servicemembers' attitudes, and
compensation. DMDC reports to DOD's Office of the Under Secretary
of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. In describing its	 
databases, DMDC states that it maintains the largest archive of  
personnel, manpower, training, and financial data in DOD. It also
notes that the personnel data are broad in scope and extend back 
to the early 1970s covering all services, all components of the  
total force (active duty, guard, reserve, and civilian), and all 
phases of the personnel life cycle (accession, separation, and	 
retirement). DMDC data serve as the basis for DOD's annual	 
Population Representation in the Military Forces which, among	 
other things, provides information on the numbers of officers who
were accessed into the military from each service's various	 
commissioning programs: military academies, Reserve Officers'	 
Training Corps (ROTC), Officer Candidate Schools (OCS: for the	 
Army, Navy, and Air Force) and Officer Training School (OTS: for 
the Air Force). On January 19, 2007, we issued a report on	 
officer accessions, retention, and foreign language training. The
purpose of this report is to bring to your attention reliability 
issues with DMDC data that we encountered while preparing our	 
report and to provide you with our recommendations to address	 
these issues.							 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-07-372R					        
    ACCNO:   A66627						        
  TITLE:     Military Personnel: DMDC Data on Officers' Commissioning 
Programs is Insufficiently Reliable and Needs to be Corrected	 
     DATE:   03/08/2007 
  SUBJECT:   Accountability					 
	     Auditing standards 				 
	     Comparative analysis				 
	     Data integrity					 
	     Databases						 
	     Internal controls					 
	     Military forces					 
	     Military officers					 
	     Military personnel 				 
	     Statistical data					 
	     Data coordination					 
	     Defense Manpower Data Center			 

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GAO-07-372R

   

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March 8, 2007

The Secretary of Defense

Subject: Military Personnel: DMDC Data on Officers' Commissioning Programs
is Insufficiently Reliable and Needs to be Corrected


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