The Department of Defense (DoD) is developing the DoD Readiness Reporting System (DRRS) to improve on readiness reporting relative to what occurs under the older Status of Resources and Training System (SORTS). The additions and improvements to SORTS are substantial, including the ways in which commanders assess units’ readiness for individual missions, automation of resource and training calculations, and the enhanced ability of associated units to report their combined or separate readiness. DoD’s current plans call for DRRS to be fully implemented by 2014. At present, very little of the improved readiness information contained in DRRS is carried over to the Quarterly Readiness Report to Congress—a report that Congressional oversight committees rely on to assess the readiness of U.S. armed forces. CBO examined potential changes to the Quarterly Readiness Report, including displaying SORTS scores and mission assessments by unit type and deployment status, linking levels of readiness to the amount of available resources, creating readiness summaries for aircraft carrier strike groups, and improving the ways in which unit and personnel rotation are displayed.
