Washington (CNN) -- The nation's military and diplomats are drowning in paper. Officials at both the Department of Defense and State Departments are complaining about reports, both internal and congressionally mandated, that are too long, too expensive and too easy to ignore.
"The reports themselves have become encyclopedic in detail and length," the State Department inspector general says in a report released Tuesday. "Shorter would be better."
The inspector general says the department also does not know how much the reports cost.
"Good stewardship of resources presumes knowledge of the actual costs of a product or service," the Inspector General's report says. "It is in the embassies' best interests to have a clearer picture of how much it actually costs to produce congressionally mandated and Department required reports."
Another risk is that preparation of the reports keeps diplomats "desk and computer bound," distracting them from other goals.
Too often instructions are lengthy, results are repetitive year in and year out, without justifying the cost in time and resources.
"The OIG team questions the need for missions to develop extensive new information on Liechtenstein (pop: 33,000), Monaco (pop: 33,000), or St. Kitts/Nevis (pop: 35,000) with the same frequency as China (pop: 1.3 billion) or India (pop: 1.17 billion)," the inspector general report said.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates earlier this month predicted he could save a whopping $1.2 billion over the next five years if he could whack hundreds of reports the Pentagon churns out and -- as Gates himself suspects -- nobody reads.
"We are eliminating nearly 400 internally generated reports that over the years have consumed vast amounts of staff time and energy, often to produce documents that are of questionable relevance, value, and in many cases have been rarely read," Gates said at his briefing on Pentagon savings and budget cuts. "Nearly a third of the total reporting requirements originated decades ago, and in some cases date back to the 1950s."
It's hard even to find out how many State Department reports there are.
"There is no authoritative, comprehensive list of the Department's congressionally mandated and department-required reports," the Inspector General says. "The Bureau of Legislative Affairs tracks 310 congressionally mandated reports to be submitted in FY2010. The Bureau of Administration separately tracks 108 recurring reports required by the Department. Neither bureau is exhaustive."
Gates said that he would stop providing reports unless they had been requested in the past five years. And as a man who prides himself on his bureaucratic skills honed in the CIA, the White House and the Pentagon, Gates knows a price tag can be an effective tool in changing what he called a culture of endless money.
"Starting in February, every report must include the cost of its production.," Gates said.
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