service contracts | The Contracting Education Academy

March 11, 2021 By cs

GAO: DoD has to get a handle on future services spending

As the Defense Department looks to buy more services, it’s going to need to come up with action plans to better account for spending in future years, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report.

Timothy DiNapoli, GAO’s director for contracting and national security acquisitions, wrote in a report to Congress that while DoD has identified areas to improve, it has yet to develop clear plans that manage spending services acquisitions over future fiscal years.

“DoD’s October 2020 report discusses the actions DOD has taken, or intends to take, to improve its management of service acquisitions, including actions to address many of the issues we have identified in our past work,” the Feb. 22 report states. “However, DoD’s report does not address our open 2016 recommendations intended to better position DoD to make informed decisions regarding the volume and type of services that should be acquired over the [Future Years Defense Program].”

GAO, which has flagged service contract spending as a high-risk issue since 2001, evaluated the Defense Department’s October report to Congress and found that DOD made strides but failed to lay out a full plan to incorporate spending on services in the future.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2021/02/22/dod-service-contracts-gao.aspx

February 25, 2021 By cs

New final rule limits use of LPTA

Businesses and consumers make complex trade-off decisions every day when buying and selling supplies and services.

Sometimes it makes sense to pay more or charge more for a supply or service when quality improvements, added features, or other considerations justify the price. Other times, paying more or adding features provides no meaningful benefit so we opt for the least expensive item that satisfies our needs.

The federal government uses this same framework, dubbed the “best value continuum,” in negotiated acquisitions. On one end of this continuum is a full trade-off, where non-price factors, e.g., quality and past performance, take precedence over price. On the opposite end of the continuum is the lowest price technically acceptable (LPTA) process. Under LPTA, the government determines its minimum acceptable technical requirements and then seeks to award a contract to the lowest priced offeror who meets the minimum requirements.

Federal agencies have been criticized for overusing the LPTA source selection process, based on the concerns that LPTA procedures chill innovation and hamstring agencies who could benefit from trading cost or price considerations for technically superior capabilities. The business community also criticized government reliance on LPTA to purchase safety-related items; such items should not be purchased based on minimum standards.

In response to these criticisms, Congress included Section 880 in the Fiscal Year (FY) 19 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), stating: “[i]t shall be the policy of the United States Government to avoid using lowest price technically acceptable source selection criteria in circumstances that would deny the government the benefits of cost and technical tradeoffs in the source selection process.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/government-contracts-procurement-ppp/1034008/you-get-what-you-pay-for-new-final-rule-limits-use-of-lpta

See Jan. 14, 2021 Final Rule affecting LPTA at: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-01-14/pdf/2020-29087.pdf

August 7, 2020 By cs

Frictionless acquisition means changing hearts and minds, not necessarily processes

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy’s new cross-agency priority goal isn’t about changing the acquisition rules or processes.

Instead, the goal of frictionless acquisition is about how contracting officers, program managers, industry and so many others view what it takes to buy a product or service.

Michael Wooten, the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, said frictionless acquisition is part of his plan to reduce complexity through leadership.

“We are really focused on reducing the time between when a person conjures up a need and when they get what they want,” Wooten said in an exclusive interview with Federal News Network. “We think the opportunities for friction are significant because of the scale and scope of the federal acquisition system, the complexity of our requirements can be mind boggling when you look at some of the systems under development, whether it’s the Defense or Energy departments or whomever, and then the myriad systems and processes that support this.”

As a result of this friction, Wooten said agencies, contractors and taxpayers are feeling the brunt through increased costs, increased time to market and decreased value.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/acquisition-policy/2020/07/frictionless-acquisition-means-changing-hearts-and-minds-not-necessarily-processes/

June 9, 2020 By cs

FAR’s ‘nondisplacement of qualified workers’ clause is finally getting the boot

Federal agencies will be issuing a final rule that will remove the infamous nondisplacement of qualified workers clause from the FAR.

The final rule went into effect June 5, 2020. Let’s take a look.

The new rule, issued May 6, 2020, implements Executive Order 13897, “Improving Federal Contractor Operations by Revoking Executive Order 13495” (published in the Federal Register on November 5, 2019, at 84 FR 59709), which Koprince Law LLC previously blogged about.

The prior Executive Order, through FAR 22.1207, implemented the nondisplacement of qualified workers requirement, which is currently found at FAR 52.222-17. This FAR clause applied to service contractors and their subcontractors and required that:

The Contractor and its subcontractors shall, except as otherwise provided herein, in good faith offer those service employees employed under the predecessor contract whose employment will be terminated as a result of award of this contract or the expiration of the contract under which the service employees were hired, a right of first refusal of employment under this contract in positions for which the service employees are qualified.

Though this requirement was implemented with good intentions, such as promoting the continuity of knowledge and experience while reducing unemployment during contractor transitions, it also placed substantial burdens on contractors pursuing and performing federal contracts.

Keep reading this article at: https://smallgovcon.com/statutes-and-regulations/the-fars-nondisplacement-of-qualified-workers-clause-is-finally-getting-the-boot/

April 10, 2018 By AMK

Pentagon’s delayed report on services contracts draws union ire

The massive National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2018 contained language requiring the Pentagon to provide more detail on its spending plans for $144 billion in services contracts.

But in the Trump administration’s fiscal 2019 budget released in February, the document that provides the most comprehensive information on services contracting was missing. The omission was spotted by specialists at the American Federation of Government Employees, who pointed out that last year’s submission carried more detail, while this year’s was limited to an “advisory and assistance services” document with simple line items.

“DOD has ignored the contract services budget requirement in its FY 2019 budget request,” the union said in a statement to Government Executive. “Instead, the department only submitted information on “Advisory and Assistance” contracts, which constitute a small fraction of one percent of overall DOD service contract spending. With the Trump Administration perceiving DOD as a piggy bank for non-Defense priorities, this continued lack of accountability for at least $144 billion per year in spending requires immediate congressional attention . . . to protect taxpayer dollars.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/defense/2018/03/pentagons-delayed-report-services-contracts-draws-union-ire/147098/

As the Defense Department looks to buy more services, it’s going to need to come up with action plans to better account for spending in future years, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report.

Businesses and consumers make complex trade-off decisions every day when buying and selling supplies and services.

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy’s new cross-agency priority goal isn’t about changing the acquisition rules or processes.

Federal agencies will be issuing a final rule that will remove the infamous nondisplacement of qualified workers clause from the FAR.

The massive National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2018 contained language requiring the Pentagon to provide more detail on its spending plans for $144 billion in services contracts.

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