COVID-19 | The Contracting Education Academy

October 22, 2020 By cs

Pentagon transitioning its COVID-19 acquisition task force to permanent office

The Joint Acquisition Task Force the Pentagon set up to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t going away, even when the pandemic finally does.

Defense officials have decided to turn it into a permanent assisted acquisition organization to help other federal agencies deal with complex procurement problems.

The department set up the task force earlier this year to serve as the single coordinator for the acquisition support it offered to other agencies during the COVID response. Since then, it’s executed more than $3 billion in contracts for other agencies — mostly the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

But Ellen Lord, DoD’s undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, said department leaders determined the interagency cooperation function needs to be an enduring capability. Starting in 2021, the Joint Acquisition Task Force (JATF) will become the Defense Assisted Acquisition Cell (DA2C), and will be part of the existing Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell (JRAC).

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2020/09/pentagon-transitioning-its-covid-19-acquisition-task-force-to-permanent-office/

October 19, 2020 By cs

Civilian agency contract spending reaches record high in FY20

The novel coronavirus pandemic largely contributed to the increase, Bloomberg Government reports.

Civilian agencies’ contract spending hit a record high of $228 billion in fiscal 2020, an increase of 17% ($33.5 billion) from 2019. The surge in spending is mainly due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs and Energy departments drove the increase in spending, Bloomberg Government said in a report. Of the $228 billion, 26% or $59.4 billion went to small businesses, a $6.5 billion increase from fiscal 2019.

“In previous years there’s been single digit jumps, so this is a huge jump compared to previous years,” Robert Levinson, senior defense analyst at Bloomberg Government, told Government Executive. He noted that there is a 90-day delay for the Defense Department’s contract spending for security purposes and there is also classified spending that will never be released.

HHS, which spent $41.2 billion in fiscal 2020 in contract obligations, accounted for 44% of the $33.5 billion in overall increased civilian contract spending. The majority of HHS’ spending was for vaccines, research, ventilators and other pandemic-related efforts. Some of these contracts, such as for a public relations campaign to “inspire hope” about the pandemic and new data reporting system, have drawn concern from Democratic lawmakers.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/10/civilian-agency-contract-spending-reaches-record-high-fiscal-2020/169127/

October 12, 2020 By cs

When politics and procurement mix, the effects can be deadly

Important components of the pandemic response have bypassed essential rules and protocols, but the problems go beyond the current crisis.

As the national response to the pandemic and associated economic crisis continues to unfold, it is becoming increasingly clear that we are again in territory where politics meets procurement. And that should be a concern for every American.

Let’s start with the obvious: The effective and efficient execution of any portion of the pandemic response largely hinges on the effective and efficient performance of our acquisition system.

The process by which federal contracts and grants are awarded is critical to support the manufacture and distribution of protective equipment, ventilators, or therapeutics and to deliver assistance to individuals and businesses struggling to survive. It therefore follows that the responsiveness of the acquisition system to meet these critical needs in large part determines the efficiency and effectiveness of our government’s response.

This is why it is so disturbing to read about cases in which important components of the national response have involved clear efforts to simply ignore the rules and protocols, from basic due diligence and pricing analyses to transparency. Yet, that is exactly what we have seen too often in recent months, including actions associated with Project Airbridge; sole source contracts for vital equipment that proved faulty; tens of millions of dollars wasted on a contract for ventilators that the Health and Human Services Department had to terminate; a complete lack of transparency around huge contracts for vaccine distribution; contracts awarded to an 11-day-old company that just happened to be founded by a former administration official; enormous grants made to a company in a manner that has raised serious ethical and other concerns, and more.

Even worse, all of these cases share another common denominator: the actions were directed and sometimes executed by senior political officials who, it could fairly be argued, are not versed in good acquisition practices and who may be driven by incentives other than the mission itself.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/09/when-politics-and-procurement-mix-effects-can-be-deadly/168553/

October 9, 2020 By cs

Why government must change its management model

Bureaucracy is getting worse, not better.

COVID-19 and the sudden shift to working remotely has accomplished something presidential initiatives, commissions and consultants failed to do — it’s forced work units and their managers to rethink working relationships. There is no time or reason to do another study; agencies have to make it work.

On the positive side, this could finally provide the impetus to shed bureaucratic practices. As John Kamensky argued in a recent column, it’s time to “strengthen unit-level health and performance.” That’s also the theme of a new book, Humanocracy, a “passionate, data-driven argument for excising bureaucracy and replacing it with something better.” The book advances the ideas in Kamensky’s column in some important ways.

The Need to ‘Excise Bureaucracy’

Government today is confronted by multiple workforce concerns: the abrupt need for highly qualified, dedicated front line workers to battle COVID; redefined manager-employee working relationships imposed by remote working; the continuing aging of the workforce; a work experience that by all reports contributes to early turnover of new hires; and a need for improved performance. Government is also affected by demographic trends, the changing career choices of the next generation of workers, and talent shortages in a number of fields. Looking ahead, in the absence of needed change, the workforce problems will deepen and performance will deteriorate.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/09/why-government-must-change-its-management-model/168449/

October 8, 2020 By cs

Contractors seek clearer, uniform guidance for returning to offices

Lack of such guidance is a “huge hole” in the federal government’s pandemic response, industry group says.

A lead trade association would like federal agencies to issue uniform guidance for their contractors’ return to workplaces amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The approximate 4.1 million federal contractors play an integral role in the functioning of the government, but are often managed differently than the 2 million federal employees. After calling on the Trump administration to issue guidance regarding telework at the onset of the pandemic, the Professional Services Council, which represents over 400 companies that work with the federal government, now would like to see agencies issue some form of uniform guidance regarding returning to workplaces.

The Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management outlined in April how federal agencies should consider bringing employees back to offices, while noting it will vary based on the region. Although there have also been questions, confusion and concerns, individual agencies have been issuing their own reopening plans for their employees.

“The guidance needs to be clearer, it needs to be more uniform, it needs to be consistent and it needs to be visible, transparent,” David Berteau, PSC president and CEO, told Government Executive during an interview last week. “I think it’s a huge hole in the government’s response. They don’t tend to think of contractors as part of an integrated workforce when they absolutely are.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/09/contractors-seek-clearer-uniform-guidance-returning-offices/168668/

The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech has established a webpage where all contract-related developments related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) are summarized. Find the page at: https://contractingacademy.gatech.edu/coronavirus-information-for-contracting-officers-and-contractors/