Clinger-Cohen Act | The Contracting Education Academy

August 9, 2017 By AMK

Panel urges acquisition system reform

The 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) established the Section 809 Panel to address fundamental problems with how the Defense Department acquires goods and services to support its warfighters.

**Starting in 2008, whenever new legislation or regulation debuted that affected government contracting, it was written on a band-aid and stuck to a golf ball. It’s 10 times bigger now.**

It recently released an interim report and supplement advocating in broad strokes for a host of improvements to the acquisition system to better streamline the process and increase industry offerings to the government.

In meeting with over 200 government and industry representatives, the interim report found that the acquisition system creates obstacles that make it unattractive for small and large businesses alike to offer their goods and services to the government. It explained that “the United States’ ability to maintain technological, military and economic superiority is being challenged,” as our adversaries are recognizing vulnerabilities in our forces and the ability to respond through modernization.

Thus, the Pentagon’s acquisition procedures must be improved to achieve “a degree of agility that DoD is not currently able to deliver,” it said.

To achieve this agility, the interim report recommended several improvements.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2017/7/25/panel-urges-acquisition-system-reform

June 9, 2017 By AMK

Congress sending mixed messages on Defense procurement

Think Bold. That’s the slogan of the so-called “Section 809 Panel,” a special commission created by Congress to review the full spate of federal (and defense-unique) acquisition laws, rules and practices.

The goal is to provide lawmakers with a set of recommendations for legislative or administrative redress that will help improve the speed and performance of the defense acquisition system and open its aperture to the full array of available capabilities.

At a recent but little noticed hearing before the House Armed Services Committee, panel chair Deirdre Lee and several of her fellow panelists made eminently clear the need for substantial change, stating outright that the current acquisition system is simply incapable of getting the job done. The pace and scope of technological developments, the changing nature of the requisite workforce, the dramatic shift in technology ownership and leadership, and the numerous regulatory and policy requirements that too often wall the government off from needed solutions were among the reasons the panelists were so unanimous in their belief that truly bold action is required. And that’s exactly what they promised their final report would deliver.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2017/05/congress-sending-mixed-messages-defense-procurement/138203/

June 21, 2013 By AMK

Unraveling the facts about GWACs

Obama administration officials say there are too many IT procurement vehicles, and they want agencies to consolidate their buying around existing interagency contracts rather than launch new ones. There is even a strong case to cut back on current contracts, which officials say are often duplicative in what they provide for buyers.

Where does that leave governmentwide acquisition contracts (GWACs)?

In early 2012, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) issued rules requiring agencies that wanted to award their own multi-agency contracts (MACs) to submit a business case arguing why those contracts were necessary — something agencies that wanted to award GWACs have had to do for years.

“Agencies are required to balance the value of creating a new contract against the benefit of using an existing one, and whether the expected return on investment is worth the taxpayer resources,” said Dan Gordon, who was OFPP administrator at the time.

Following the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act that authorized their creation, GWACs became a poster child of sorts for that kind of contract inflation. Many agencies were looking to create their own contracts as testimony to their procurement mojo in an era of huge growth in government IT acquisition. For vendors, GWACs were seen as a hunting license to pursue lucrative government IT business.

Keep reading this article at: http://fcw.com/articles/2013/06/07/feature-gwac-facts.aspx

The 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) established the Section 809 Panel to address fundamental problems with how the Defense Department acquires goods and services to support its warfighters.

Think Bold. That’s the slogan of the so-called “Section 809 Panel,” a special commission created by Congress to review the full spate of federal (and defense-unique) acquisition laws, rules and practices.

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