The Department of the Navy has abruptly changed course on a planned headquarters reorganization that would have created a powerful new Senate-confirmed position to oversee IT, cyber and data issues.
Navy Secretary Richard Spencer stopped short of saying he had completely abandoned the department’s plan to establish an assistant secretary for information management. But the path ahead was highly uncertain as of Friday.
As recently as three weeks ago, the Navy said its intent was to make room in its organizational chart for the new position by abolishing the job of assistant secretary for energy, installations and environment. Those duties, in turn, would have moved to the office of the assistant secretary for research, development and acquisition.
But the timing for that particular strategy could not have been worse.
On the same day Navy undersecretary Thomas Modly described the reorganization plan at a conference in San Diego, military families were giving vivid accounts of the substandard living conditions in their on-base housing before a hearing of the Senate Committee on Armed Services.
The new disclosures about how widespread the military’s…
