The White House is in the process of finalizing round two of its myth-busting campaign to improve how government and contractors interact.
“The effort for phase two is under way,” said Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel at the Professional Services Council, who participated in some of the discussions on the second iteration. “While the first memo primarily addressed government barriers, this is supposed to focus more on the contractor side.”
Specifically, he noted, the Office of Management and Budget hopes to address issues like proprietary data — what the government is entitled to own under contracts and what limitations there are on what it can share. There will likely be clarification about what agencies can reveal about acquisition plans prior to the release of the solicitations, as well as their process of proposal evaluation.
“Industry is always interested in learning as much as they can about government’s actions, because ‘if I know more than you do, it can help me in my competition,'” Chvotkin said. “But that’s the line you can’t cross.”
Dan Gordon, administrator for federal procurement policy, distributed to all agencies in February a memo that addressed the top 10 misconnections about communication with industry during the acquisition process. The memo did not change policy, but sought to clarify and encourage acceptable interaction between government and contractors.
— by Jill R. Aitoro, Senior Staff Reporter, Washington Business Journal – Wednesday, December 14, 2011 – http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/fedbiz_daily/2011/12/second-phase-of-myth-busting-campaign.html?ana=twt
