The other problem is laziness. At least up until a few years ago (if not still going on), Lockheed Martin/Systems Integration was referred to within the IMINT directorate simply as “The SI” with the capital letters implied. People getting Lockheed paychecks were viewed as “trusted agents” and were “inside the wire” at IMINT HQ helping the gov’t decide that, lo and behold, why buy one Lockheed product when you can buy two? They were basically viewed (and may still be) within the unofficial heirarchy as follows:
–first Gov’t (AF or CIA or Navy)
–then FFRDC (AEROSPACE)
–next, slightly under “Circle-A” came “The” SI (Lockheed, “firewalled” of course)
–and then finally, of course, the lowly SETA (Scitor, etc).

BTW: more than once members of the SI were caught passing info to the production side of the company.

The rare SPO directors that refused to allow SI personnel within their program were viewed askance. (Luckily I was in such a SPO)

I was always amused at the great pains taken to give the appearance of dealing with OCI (financial disclosure forms, training, etc), while the world’s largest defense contractor was sitting right next to the govies in HQ, often making (I’m sorry, “drafting”) your decision briefs for you, and overall just helping the govies decide which multi-$B program to buy.

The arcane gov’t hiring system, lower salaries (for engineers), and the lack of ability for the gov’t to fire deadbeat employees make the reliance on FFRDC/SETAs a done deal. (Look at the screaming over NSPS…)

As a final symptom, just go ask any NRO contracting officer and I’m sure she’ll tell you how many times that she’s had to lecture multiple young (and not so young) gov’t program managers on not letting the SETA contractor write their own statements of work. PS: they do it anyway.

There, that was therapeutic…thanks for listening!