assisted acquisition services | The Contracting Education Academy

March 9, 2020 By cs

HHS’ shutdown of assisted acquisition services remains painful, wasteful

The Department of Health and Human Services is not just failing its agency and contractor customers but also, once again, demonstrating why “the government” gets maligned as wasteful, insular and uncaring.

With its decision to end its assisted acquisition services through its Program Support Center, HHS is putting more than $1 billion in contracts at risk. It’s hanging large and small agencies out to dry — ranging from the Defense Department to the Environmental Protection Agency to the Office of Special Counsel — by canceling contracts and giving them little time to prepare for the changes. And it is withholding payment to potentially hundreds of small and large contractors, putting some at risk of closing down or facing employee layoffs and additional contract costs.

At the same time, HHS is paying tens of thousands of dollars in prompt payment penalties to those same contractors for avoidable mistakes, inching ever closer to what experts would call waste and abuse.

“Since the beginning, HHS PSC was inflicting pain on themselves,” said Ron Robinson, a former program manager for Copper River Technologies, which provided contract support and financial analyst services until December when PSC ended its three-year contract two years early. “It is horrible the way HHS has handled this. They should be held accountable, and it doesn’t seem like anyone wants to. There wasn’t communication. There was a lack of transparency. You see that time and again with them suspending warrants and putting four people on administrative leave without telling them why.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2020/03/hhs-shutdown-of-assisted-acquisition-services-remains-painful-wasteful/

September 18, 2019 By cs

HHS’s suspension of acquisition services leaves outside agencies and contractors in limbo

It’s been three months since the department announced it was closing down its shared services operations, and many questions remain unanswered.

The Health and Human Services Department’s decision to wind down its acquisition services for outside agencies has left customers scrambling to fill the void and a number of unanswered questions.

HHS announced in June that it would no longer offer assisted acquisition services for non-HHS customers through its Program Support Center, and gave them until Sept. 30, 2020, to find alternative providers. The center works for HHS and 19 other agencies on a fee-for-service basis, administering more than $1.4 billion in contracts per year, Federal News Network reported. Also, the department put four officials associated with the Program Support Center on paid leave between April and June, Bloomberg News reported.

“As the result of an internal review that is ongoing, [the Program Support Center] has determined that it does not have the policies, procedures, or internal controls necessary to conduct assisted acquisitions for agencies outside of HHS,” said Melissa McAbee, acting head of contracting at PSC, according to a report in Bloomberg News. As of mid-June, the center was managing 250 contracts for agencies besides HHS, including the Defense Department and Environmental Protection Agency.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2019/09/hhss-suspension-acquisition-services-leaves-outside-agencies-and-contractors-limbo/159870/

March 6, 2018 By AMK

Agencies increasingly need help with complex professional services contracts

General Services Administration contracting officers are seeing a shift in big, complicated procurements as more agencies come to the shop looking for professional services rather than IT.

Overall, the Office of Assisted Acquisition Services — which helps other agencies that either don’t have a procurement shop or don’t have the expertise to manage large, complex buys — has seen double-digit growth over that last two years and is expecting to do so again over the next two years, Tom Howder, assistant commissioner for Assisted Acquisition Services, said at ACT-IAC’s Federal Insights Exchange on Feb. 22.

Part of that growth has been due to the addition of professional services as an area of expertise. That area is now outpacing IT in growth.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2018/02/agencies-increasingly-need-help-complex-professional-services-contracts/146209/

April 14, 2017 By AMK

Progress impeded, acquisition workforce anxious as bid protests continue to multiply

If you want to strike a nerve with federal acquisition managers, bring up bid protests.

The number of protests have all but doubled over the past decade, and that’s creating a significant amount of consternation among the ranks of acquisition personnel at the General Services Administration (GSA).

Janine Wilkinson, GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service national account manager for the Army, said that this was one of the main things federal customers need from industry during a Coalition for Government Procurement panel on April 4, and other GSA officials quickly piled on.

“It’s not just the Army, it’s across the spectrum of customers,” Mark Aucello, director of GSA’s Assisted Acquisition Services client support center for the Mid-Atlantic region, said. “We understand, if we do something wrong, and there’s a legitimate reason to protest, then protest. That’s what it’s there for. But … [when] it’s ‘I want to keep it another six months because I’m the incumbent and I lost,’ I think that’s the sort of thing that creates a lot of work and expense on the government’s part.”

Tom Howder, assistant commissioner for AAS, agreed, noting that nationally, there’s been an increase in protests, which lengthens the acquisition time frame and impacts the workforce, who frequently have to be reassured that the number of bid protests are not a reflection on the quality of their work.

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/acquisition/2017/04/progress-impeded-acquisition-workforce-anxious-bid-protests-continue-multiply/

January 18, 2016 By AMK

NIH-run IT contracting vehicle slashes fees

One of the federal government’s largest governmentwide acquisition vehicles is slashing the fees it charges agencies to purchase IT products and services.

The National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center — known as NITAAC — announced it would pare back the prices for its three offerings by as much as 35 percent.

The center is one of just three entities authorized by the Office of Management and Budget to manage governmentwide acquisition contracts, or GWACs.

NITAAC officials cited the success of three agency-run programs for the fee drop. In 2015, the center expanded its services, including offering assisted acquisition services to Defense Department agencies.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2016/01/nih-run-it-contracting-vehicle-slashes-fees/124878/

The Department of Health and Human Services is not just failing its agency and contractor customers but also, once again, demonstrating why “the government” gets maligned as wasteful, insular and uncaring.

It’s been three months since the department announced it was closing down its shared services operations, and many questions remain unanswered.

General Services Administration contracting officers are seeing a shift in big, complicated procurements as more agencies come to the shop looking for professional services rather than IT.

If you want to strike a nerve with federal acquisition managers, bring up bid protests.

One of the federal government’s largest governmentwide acquisition vehicles is slashing the fees it charges agencies to purchase IT products and services.

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