The Contracting Education Academy

Contracting Academy Logo
  • Home
  • Training & Education
  • Services
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / Archives for inherently governmental

June 23, 2014 By AMK

Senate testimony: Intelligence community needs to keep better tabs on its contractors

The 17 agencies in the intelligence community must get a better handle on the extent of their reliance on contractors, witnesses told a Senate panel on Wednesday. Overuse of outsourcing presents risks to both national security and managerial efficiency, senators and an auditor warned.

“Contractors can provide flexibility and unique expertise, but there are risks” if internal controls, formal planning and documentation are inadequate, Timothy DiNapoli, director of acquisition and sourcing management at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “Changes to the definition of core contract personnel limit the comparability of the information over time,” he said, noting that the civilian intelligence community agencies used various methods to calculate the number of contract personnel and did not maintain documentation to validate the number of personnel reported for 37 percent of records reviewed. GAO also found that the civilian intelligence community agencies either under- or over-reported contract obligations by more than 10 percent for one-fifth of the records.

Panel Chairman Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., said, “The people we entrust with leadership roles at these agencies need to be able to show the American people, and Congress, that they know who is working for them and why.” Overreliance on contractors behind the intelligence agencies’ secrecy walls presents three hazards, Carper said: hollowing out the in-house workforce and making it weaker, requiring extra layers of management and paying more for work that could have been performed by federal employees.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.defenseone.com/management/2014/06/intelligence-community-needs-keep-better-tabs-its-contractors/86758/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: acquisition workforce, contract administration, GAO, inherently governmental, inherently governmental functions, OFPP, outsourcing

April 30, 2014 By AMK

Rule would expand scope of personal conflict of interest regulation

Individual federal contractors will likely face increased conflict of interest scrutiny under a proposed regulation.

The rule, proposed April 2, would expand strictures against personal conflicts of interest beyond just contractors with non-governmental acquisition duties. That would make the scope of personal conflict of interest regulations match those controlling organizational conflict of interest.

Currently the Federal Acquisition Regulation limits the definition of personal conflict of interest to those performing jobs closely associated with inherently governmental acquisition work.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/rule-would-expand-personal-conflict-interest-beyond-acquisition/2014-04-22

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: acquisition workforce, conflict of interest, FAR, inherently governmental, inherently governmental functions, organizational knowledge

June 20, 2013 By AMK

GAO: DoD fails to fully account for contractors performing inherently governmental functions

The Government Accountability Office says a haphazard Defense Department review of nearly $200  billion of annual contracted services makes it impossible to determine whether  corrective actions were taken in cases where contractors were doing work  government employees should be performing.

To correct the problem, the GAO recommended in its report (.pdf) that the defense secretary direct the  leaders of all military components to include all the required elements in their  letters and certify the methodology and results of their contracted services  inventory review. GAO said those letters also should include how the components  resolved instances in which contractors were performing work that should have  been done by DoD employees.

The Defense Department concurred with the findings but disagreed the  defense secretary needed to be involved. The Pentagon also disagreed that  components should still report how they resolved cases in which contractors  performed governmental or unauthorized personal services, saying they would  rather focus on current and future reviews.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/gao-dod-fails-fully-account-contractors-performing-inherently-governmental/2013-05-27?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: Air Force, DARPA, DLA, DoD, GAO, inherently governmental, inherently governmental functions

March 27, 2012 By AMK

Former OFPP chief cites progress in federal acquisition and workforce

Daniel I. Gordon, who served as the Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy from 2009 through 2011, has authored a paper on his tenure in at the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP).

The paper, published in the Government Contractor, presents reflections on his three goals while Administrator: strengthening the federal acquisition workforce, driving fiscal responsibility in federal acquisition, and rebalancing the relationship with contractors.

Gordon points to reversal of several negative trends, in particular, decline in the size of the federal acquisition workforce during the years 1992-2009, unsustainable annual increases in procurement spending during those years, and an unhealthy overreliance on contractors in performance of key government functions. In each of those key areas, Gordon reports on the progress made — increasing the size of the federal acquisition workforce, buying less and buying smarter (particularly through the strategic sourcing initiative), and a better balance in relations with contractors, with more clarity about the proper role of contractors and improved oversight, as well as efforts to increase communication with vendors.

A full copy of the article can be downloaded here: Reflections on the Federal Procurement Landscape – February 2012.

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: acquisition workforce, blanket purchase agreements, contract management, contracting officers, government contracts, inherently governmental, insourcing, management support services, outsourcing, public procurement, strategic sourcing

September 15, 2011 By AMK

OMB announces final guidance on inherently governmental functions

Long-anticipated final guidance on “inherently governmental functions” is set for publication on Monday and should clarify confusion over blurred lines in agencies’ understanding of which types of work should be outsourced, top officials at the Office of Management and Budget told reporters on Friday.

The final policy letter, said Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients, “helps agencies do better at balancing contracting out with management by federal employees. The mix was out of balance and we think this protects the public interest. Given our fiscal situation today, it is important more than ever that taxpayer money be well spent.”

With a few exceptions, the guidance, which takes effect Oct. 12, is similar to the draft released in March 2010, said Dan Gordon, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. “But it is a milestone” that follows up on a memorandum of understanding about reducing waste in contracting issued by President Obama in March 2009.

The document includes lengthy lists of functions that are clearly inherently governmental and separate lists of “functions closely associated with the performance of inherently governmental functions” — where agencies can use more discretion.

One difference in the new guidance is a provision intended to “clarify the confusing and controversial” policy on the contracting out of military security operations, Gordon said. If a function is part of combat or could evolve into combat, then contractors can’t be used. “We benefited on this issue from public comments from the private sector, agencies, nonprofits and the Hill,” he added.

A second departure is a provision intended to help small businesses. “It places a lower priority on in-sourcing if the function is not inherently governmental,” Gordon said. “Insourcing is not a goal, but agencies need to understand that if an inherently governmental function is improperly contracted,” they can lose control of the work.

The administration “is sensitive” to realities of the current budget crunch, Gordon acknowledged. “We need to demonstrate fiscal responsibility on both sides” of the contracting process, he said. “We don’t want to dramatically increase [full-time equivalent] levels on the federal side, but in today’s fiscal world, the solution is not massive contracting out,” nor is it massive insourcing.

Zients presented the letter in the context of the administration’s two-and-a-half-year-old effort to trim waste by curbing contracting “after its uncontrolled growth under the prior administration.” One in six federal dollars is contracted out, and the rate, mostly in services, doubled since 2008, he said. But 2010 marked the first time in a decade that the level of contracting decreased, by $80 billion.

Examples of smarter contracting, Zients said, include “strategic sourcing,” such as pooling purchases of office supplies, which can save as much as 40 percent. “Rather than buying like 100 medium-sized businesses, take advantage of the fact that the United States is the world’s largest purchaser,” he said.

Another means is cutting spending on management support, which quadrupled over the past 10 years, he added. “In information technology and acquisition, management support produces many wasteful and unnecessary consultants’ reports that sit on a shelf.” That approach will reduce expenses by 15 percent, or $7 billion in fiscal 2012, he said.

Focusing on interaction with contractors, the administration also has “strengthened suspension and debarment” processes, Zients said, stressing, however, that “contractors do valuable work and will continue to do so.”

Over the past year and a half, Gordon said, the outsourcing-insourcing issue has been reviewed most thoroughly by the Defense and Homeland Security departments, a process now largely complete. Most agencies have already been working under the principles of the final guidance, he said, so its release won’t prompt major shifts.

Critical functions differ by agency, Gordon said, but the letter provides “clear direction to managers responsible for policy on the closely associated functions to make sure that the agency can control it and that the work doesn’t expand.”

The problem, he said, though “now largely corrected,” has been that some agencies, for example, would have a contractor write a statement of work and then award the contract to that same company. In managing IT functions, he added, he’s heard federal managers say that “no one in-house understands the work and that they’re completely dependent on the contractor. It’s intolerable.” The solution, he said, might be limited insourcing, adding two to three people, or simply applying more attention.

The guidance’s definition of inherently governmental, as in the draft, is based on the 1998 Federal Activities Inventory Reform Act, and Zients said the letter’s other changes, though small, would require adjusting the Federal Acquisition Regulation to conform.

Dozens of interest groups had been following the evolution of final guidance on what is inherently governmental. “We are pleased OFPP has retained flexibilities for agencies to determine what functions are considered closely associated with inherently governmental functions or are critical functions to agency missions and to provide for these functions in a way that best meets their needs and capabilities,” said Stan Soloway, president of the industry group the Professional Services Council. “However, we are concerned that the list of closely associated functions could be misconstrued as a ‘do not contract’ list, even though it is not the case, nor OFPP’s intent. The checklist that identifies closely associated functions must not become a barrier to contracting for work where it is appropriate to do so.”

Scott Amey, general counsel of the watchdog group the Project on Government Oversight, said he is impressed with the guidance. “The policy comes clean about the government’s over-reliance on contractors and improves the categories of activities and functions that shouldn’t be performed by contractors,” he said. “Private security in combat areas was never a good policy, and OFPP’s changes will ensure that properly trained and mission-responsible government personnel conduct such work.” He wonders, however, whether agencies will actually retain or insource work that his group believes should be performed by public servants.

Steve Amitay, federal legislative counsel of the National Association of Security Companies, said on Friday that absence of any mention of “building security” in the guidance “validates the continued successful use of contract security by federal agencies. Furthermore, given the decades of effective and efficient use of contract security by federal agencies, any agency that is considering insourcing security jobs should, as the policy states, be required to conduct an in-depth, comprehensive cost-analysis of such a move.”

— by Charles S. Clark – Government Executive – September 9, 2011 – http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0911/090911cc1.htm?rss=getoday&oref=rss

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: cost, debarment, inherently governmental, insourcing, OFPP, OMB, outsourcing, strategic sourcing, suspension

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Popular Topics

abuse acquisition reform acquisition strategy acquisition training acquisition workforce Air Force Army AT&L bid protest budget budget cuts competition cybersecurity DAU DFARS DHS DoD DOJ FAR fraud GAO Georgia Tech GSA GSA Schedule GSA Schedules IG industrial base information technology innovation IT Justice Dept. Navy NDAA OFPP OMB OTA Pentagon procurement reform protest SBA sequestration small business spending technology VA
Contracting Academy Logo
75 Fifth Street, NW, Suite 300
Atlanta, GA 30308
info@ContractingAcademy.gatech.edu
Phone: 404-894-6109
Fax: 404-410-6885

RSS Twitter

Search this Website

Copyright © 2023 · Georgia Tech - Enterprise Innovation Institute