The Defense Department’s (DoD) undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment has issued a set of rules to implement a policy announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in May that limits the agency’s use of IT consulting contracts in order to reduce reliance on outside firms and bolster the department’s in-house expertise.
The original policy memo issued by Hegseth on May 27 instructs Pentagon leaders to halt any new IT consulting or management services contracts – which DoD defines as work involving system integration, IT implementation, or advisory functions – without first showing that no DoD personnel or agency can perform the task, and that the work cannot be procured directly from a non-consultant service provider.
Hegseth’s May 27 memo aims to put into action President Donald Trump’s Feb. 26 executive order on implementing the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cost efficiency initiative. A central aim of that order is to transform “Federal spending on contracts, grants, and loans to ensure Government spending is transparent and Government employees are accountable to the American public.”
The June 23 implementation memo from Undersecretary for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey recounts that DoD components “must obtain approval prior to executing new contracts or task orders (TOs) for Information Technology Consulting and Management Services (ITC&MS) and Advisory and Assistance Services (A&AS),” and that the DoD DOGE team “will have the opportunity to review and provide input for certain requirements packages in his separate memorandum.”
The new contract approval process, Duffey said, “is effective immediately for all covered unclassified requirements expected to result in new Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)-based contracts or TOs for ITC&MS and A&AS.”
“Components will submit supporting documentation via go.mil/dogecontractreview,” Duffey said, adding, “Components may presume approval and proceed with the acquisition process if no response is received by close of business the third business day following submission of the request for approval.”
“Submissions supported by DOGE (indicated as such in response to a Component’s submission), or any submission where DOGE chooses not to respond, shall be considered approved,” the memo says.
“Where DOGE identifies concerns about prospective contracts submitted for approval, I expect the DOGE team to address concerns directly with the requirements owner up the chain through the Service/Component Acquisition Executive (SAE/CAE) to the Component head to ultimately resolve,” Duffey’s memo says.