DCAA is currently comprised of five regional offices; Northeastern, Eastern, Mid-Atlantic, Central, and Western - and a Field Detachment specializing in audits related to sensitive compartmented information and special access programs.
Under the reorganization, the number of regional offices will be reduced from five to three - Eastern, Central, and Western. But these three remaining Regions will not have cognizance over the Government's largest defense contractors. Those will form their own "special" regions and report to the Director, just like the Regional Directors do now. There will be five new special regions including:
- General Dynamics/Raytheon/BAE
- Lockheed Martin
- Boeing/Honeywell
- Northrup Grumman
- L-3
Any audit activity at any of the segments of these contractors will report to the Director of the respective Contractor regions.
What will this mean for contractors? Well, if you're one of the major contractors listed above, you should see improved consistency in audit positions. One major contractor frustration is auditors at a plant in Seattle taking different positions than auditors at the same contractor's plant in St. Louis. Since all of the segments will be reporting to the same director, consistency should be improved.
Don't expect a whole new cadre of auditors however. That will stay the same. Don't expect shifts in audit focus. There is only so many type of contract audits that can be performed. Do expect better access to top management. The special regional directors are only one level below the Director for all of DCAA.
If you're not one of the eight top defense contractors, you probably shouldn't expect to see any significant changes when interacting with contract auditors.
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