The Government Accountability Office has called on the Defense Department to establish performance goals and associated measures necessary to evaluate the Pilot Mentor-Protege Program.
GAO said in a report published Tuesday that DoD’s office of small business programs should perform periodic reviews of the processes that service branches and agency components implement to approve agreements under the program.
The agency found that DoD failed to include in its annual reports on the program information on how mentors assist proteges to build up their capabilities.
GAO performed a random review of 44 of the 78 mentor-protege transactions as of June 2016 and predicted that 27 percent of those agreements lacked industry code, signature, date and other elements required by the program’s policies and regulations.
The Pilot Mentor-Protege Program is designed to provide incentives to defense contractors that act as mentors and offer assistance to their proteges – small disadvantaged firms – in order to help the latter compete for commercial and federal contracts.
The program received $28.3 million in fiscal 2016 funds and was renewed as a pilot initiative through Sept. 30, 2018, according to the report.