insourcing | The Contracting Education Academy

June 29, 2017 By AMK

OMB ‘out of practice’ on competitive sourcing, adviser says

Preliminary moves by the White House to ease the moratorium on reviewing federal jobs for outsourcing under the guidelines in Circular A-76 have drawn some skepticism within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Linda Springer, President Trump’s senior adviser on management issues who recently announced her June 30 retirement, told reporters during a June 15 briefing on curbing agency reporting requirements that her “personal view is that OMB is out of practice in running those competitions [for whether the public or private sector should perform work]. Before undertaking it,” she said, “it would be better to do some educating.”

OMB Circular A-76, which dates to 1966 before being revised, outlines a “formal, complex, and often lengthy process for managing public-private competitions to perform functions for the federal government,” as a Congressional Research Service report phrased it.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2017/06/omb-out-practice-competitive-sourcing-adviser-says/138838

April 19, 2017 By AMK

Little-noticed section of OMB’s reorg memo brings the real potential for change

Tucked into the Office of Management and Budget’s ambitious plan to reorganize and restructure the government is a significant and generally overlooked section on organizational efficiency and effectiveness.

But it’s this portion of the April 12, 2017 memo focusing on the mundane ideas of alternative delivery models, streamlining mission-support functions and leveraging existing solutions for common requirements that includes some of the most realistic and achievable goals. Ideas such as shared services, insourcing and outsourcing and the all-but-mandate to use existing multiple-award contracts instead of developing new ones are the types of initiatives that have the real potential to change and transform agencies and their mission areas.

“The memo was clearly written by knowledgeable insiders,” said Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel for the Professional Services Council, an industry association. “The use of best-in-class contracts drawn from a prior version of the Circular on category management, the call for shared services and other examples are from people who know what they are talking about.”

Chvotkin said the memo also sends a specific message to agencies about how the Trump administration is starting to develop its management agenda.

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2017/04/little-noticed-section-ombs-reorg-memo-brings-real-potential-change/

April 25, 2016 By AMK

Epic stands to lose part of $642 million VA patient-scheduling system contract

Epic Systems Corp. may lose its part of a $642 million government contract to provide its commercial computerized patient-scheduling system to the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) if home-grown software that’s 99% cheaper works.

Some members of Congress, however, question the VHA’s decision to put its Epic contract on hold, as well as its ability to develop its own software, in the wake of accusations that officials continue to falsify records on the wait times veterans endure to receive clinical care.

“This seems like deja vu all over again to me,” said Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, (D-N.H.), quoting Yogi Berra.

Kuster is the ranking member of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Her remarks came during a hearing Thursday on Veterans Administration health information technology projects.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20160414/NEWS/160419951

October 17, 2013 By AMK

GAO critical of how DoD estimates insourcing cost

The way the Defense Department estimates the cost of insourcing contractor positions to government employees has come under new criticism from the Government Accountability Office.

Whether government employees or private contractors ultimately cost the government less has long been a subject of debate, and past attempts to settle the matter have faced scrutiny for flaws in their methods and assumptions.

According to a GAO report dated Sept. 25, the department’s instructions say to estimate the cost of overhead for insourced employees by using a standard rate of 12 percent of labor costs. But the GAO and the department’s office of inspector general have both said that rate has no sound basis.

Until officials can determine a more meaningful rate to estimate overhead costs, “savings expected from public-private competitions will be imprecise and competition decisions could continue to be controversial,” the report says.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/gao-critical-how-dod-estimates-insourcing-cost/2013-10-08

February 13, 2013 By AMK

DoD issues guidance for notifying private sector of in-sourcing decisions

The Department of Defense (DoD) issued a memorandum on February 7, 2013 entitled “Private Sector Notification Requirements in Support of In-sourcing Actions.”

The memorandum provides implementing direction on the notification of private sector providers (contractors) when making a determination to in-source a contracted service for civilian or military performance.

This guidance can be found at: Memorandum – Private Sector Notification Requirements in Support of In-sourcing Actions (29 January 2013)

Preliminary moves by the White House to ease the moratorium on reviewing federal jobs for outsourcing under the guidelines in Circular A-76 have drawn some skepticism within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Tucked into the Office of Management and Budget’s ambitious plan to reorganize and restructure the government is a significant and generally overlooked section on organizational efficiency and effectiveness.

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