SmartContracting: OFPP

Happy Friday! In today's news...

Federal News Radio: Senate confirms wave of DoD nominees, new OFPP administrator
http://bit.ly/KoEXiu

Defense News: Think Tank Calls for Major U.S. Defense Reductions
http://bit.ly/Lv1eJ1

Washington Post: Investigators want explanation of alleged overbilling in Afghanistan
http://wapo.st/Kg4NXf

FCW: Bills would establish higher small-biz contracting goals
http://bit.ly/JyajBK

DoDBuzz: Senate leader ‘not backing off’ sequestration
http://bit.ly/KoF4dX

Thursday, May 17, 2012

SmartContracting Daily Intel for May 17, 2012

In today's news...

Government Executive: Obama procurement chief nominee clears Senate panel

http://bit.ly/LakRG3

FCW: VA's Frye stirs debate with reverse auction explanation

http://bit.ly/KifljO

Washington Post: White House’s cybersecurity official retiring

http://wapo.st/KoubqV

Washington Business Journal: Defense authorization bill could bar private security contractors from Afghanistan

http://bit.ly/Jy3Zga

Monday, May 7, 2012

SmartContracting Daily Intel for May 7, 2012

Happy Monday! In today's news...

Federal News Radio: OFPP dispels 8 more agency, vendor communications myths

http://bit.ly/IHvpja

Washington Times: Defense budget casualties light on civilian side

http://bit.ly/Jj5grb

Federal News Radio: Army tries to improve and cut back on service contracting

http://bit.ly/KzpyPI

FCW: DOD looks to enterprise IT strategy for savings and efficiency

http://bit.ly/Jj5z53

Related: FCW: By the numbers: Defense IT spending

http://bit.ly/J9u7Mc

Washington Post: ‘Sammie’ award finalists named from federal workforce

http://wapo.st/IPtQks

Federal Times: Civilian workforce critical to Army's success

http://bit.ly/JX5lOx

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

SmartContracting Daily Intel for April 25, 2012

Everyday SmartContracting brings you the news intel you may have missed regarding our industry and our government customers. In today's news...

Federal Times: Government to pay contractor executives more

http://bit.ly/I5claL

FCW: OFPP nominee could be in for a long wait

http://bit.ly/IkfMuH

Federal News Radio: Performance improvement has 'turned the corner' in government

http://bit.ly/JnA75z

Bloomberg Government: Losers Protest More as U.S. Contracts Dwindle: BGOV Barometer

http://bit.ly/K4cUCp (subscription required)

Federal Times: Bill would require services to share ‘wish lists' annually

http://bit.ly/Iczufh

Federal News Radio: Pentagon nears expansion of cyber information sharing effort

http://bit.ly/JG1PK8

Friday, March 30, 2012

SmartContracting Daily Intel for March 30, 2012

Happy Friday! Get ready for the weekend with today's news.

Washington Business Journal: Compensation Caps: Recipes for Disaster

http://bit.ly/HpG1mu

Federal Times: OMB guidance expected on measuring insourcing, outsourcing costs

http://bit.ly/H6U6Qi

Washington Post: Senate panel examines contractor spending

http://wapo.st/HrTXvk

FCW: Senator knocks government spending on contractors

http://bit.ly/H7jSEP

Federal News Radio: OFPP readying round 2 of Mythbusters

http://bit.ly/Hn9uPm

Washington Post: Senator proposes reforms for Senior Executive Service

http://wapo.st/HsNi2S

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

The Cost of Critical Functions

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) finally issued its long-awaited, and fairly lengthy, policy memo governing the use of contractors to perform critical functions and functions closely associated with inherently governmental functions. But the policy memo is not fully functional because it tells agencies to determine the costs associated with in-house performance of non-inherently governmental work but lacks guidance on how they are to estimate and compare the costs with the private sector.

While the true cost to the government of contractor performance is fairly clear, the true costs of in-house performance has never been adequately determined using any of the existing methodologies.

Earlier this year, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recommended the most comprehensive public-private cost comparison methodology to date and PSC endorsed it. It is troubling that OFPP did not mention this or any other methodology, let alone adopt the sound, evidence-based CSIS analysis.

Additionally, there is strong evidence to suggest that the private sector is more efficient and cost effective for performing these functions. Even the Commission on Wartime Contracting reached this conclusion in the appendix to its Aug. 31 final report.

We look forward to seeing further guidance from OFPP on the cost comparison methodology. Until such guidance is issued, OFPP’s final policy memo on “Performance of Inherently Governmental and Critical Functions” cannot be considered truly final.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Smart Contracting Starts with a Smart Contracting Workforce

Smart contracting starts with a smart contracting workforce, a fact picked up by two smart contracting gurus in Congress: Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va.

The two lawmakers have each dropped identical acquisition workforce reform bills that will help improve civilian agency training by creating a clear reporting structure for the Federal Acquisition Institute (FAI). The bills, S. 762 and H.R. 1424, would mandate FAI report directly to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy and would give OFPP the power to enforce governmentwide training standards for acquisition personnel through FAI.

Read the full story >>

Monday, December 13, 2010

Insourcing Implementation So Far Proves Not Smart Contracting

First, Defense Secretary Gates questioned insourcing at the Defense Department after he found that this initiative had not achieved the intended savings. Now a second administration official is questioning agency insourcing actions.

According to the Dec. 13 edition of Capital Business (the Washington Post’s business weekly), OFPP Administrator Dan Gordon indicated that agencies misunderstood OMB’s guidance and brought work in house to meet quotas, regardless of whether doing so saved money, increased efficiencies or improved internal management capabilities.

“We do not view insourcing as a goal,” Gordon said, according to the Post account of his Dec. 10 speech. “What we’re doing is rebalancing our relationship with contractors.” In this rebalancing effort, the administration wants to convert “targeted, limited numbers of positions” to public sector performance, the Post reported.

The Post quotes Gordon as saying:

“No corporation would agree to have somebody else running their entire operations…There are far too many situations where we have yielded control of our own missions…to contractors. That needs to be fixed, but it doesn’t require massive insourcing.”

Read the full story >>

Monday, June 7, 2010

OFPP Proposed Workforce Policy Too Complex, Lacks Clarity

The Professional Services Council, through the Council of Defense and Space Industry Associations (CODSIA), made recommendations to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy on how it can improve its proposed policy letter “Work Reserved for Performance by Federal Employees” to avoid creating an environment that would promote arbitrary insourcing at federal agencies.

The proposed policy letter sought to clarify the definition of what constitutes “inherently governmental” work that must be performed by federal government employees and to provide guidance to agencies to help them identify functions “closely associated with inherently governmental” and “critical” functions that should also be reserved for federal employee performance.

But we felt that agencies could misinterpret the proposal as a mandate to insource work that is neither inherently governmental nor critical to government’s mission performance, such as base maintenance, information technology support or other tasks found in the yellow pages.

To avoid a final policy that results in wide-scale, non-strategic, quota-driven insourcing, we recommended OFPP:

Provide a clear definition and examples of what constitutes inherently governmental work;
Combine the categories of “closely associated with inherently governmental functions” and “critical functions” into one narrowly defined category to eliminate duplication and confusion;
Require that agencies to submit and publicize a list of their inherently governmental and critical functions and define which critical functions must be reserved for performance by federal employees;
Require agencies establish a comprehensive human capital plan and conduct in-depth cost comparisons before making insourcing determinations for work that could be performed by either the public or private sectors.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Gordon hears PSC, ABA concerns on multi-sector workforce policy memo

Office of Federal Procurement Policy Administrator Daniel Gordon took part in a question and answer session the Professional Services Council and the American Bar Association hosted on April 26. Gordon discussed his March 31 draft policy letter, “Work Reserved for Performance by Federal Government Employees.” Among the top concerns raised by attendees about the letter: a failure to offer clear guidance on conducting a cost comparison and a failure to address what to do when a job could be considered “government only” but the need is immediate or the job isn’t a long-term requirement. Gordon said he is in “listening mode” and welcomed written comments on these and other concerns raised during the town-hall style meeting. PSC is preparing comments to send to Gordon by the June 1 deadline.