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Supply chain task force looks to keep ‘lemons’ out of the federal IT ecosystem

The Department of Homeland Security announced the roll out of its supply chain security task force on Information and Communications Technology.

At a Nov. 1 meeting of the Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board, a DHS official provided more details on the group’s composition and mission.

The task force will consist of approximately 60 members — drawn equally from the federal government, the tech sector and the communications sector, according to Emile Monette, a cybersecurity strategist at DHS and co-chair. Monette told FCW after the meeting that “most” of the group’s membership has been solidified, but that DHS is planning to provide more specifics in the next few weeks.

An executive committee, roughly half the full task force’s size, will meet in mid-November to begin laying out priorities and setting up work streams, such as tweaking to Federal Acquisition Regulation rules requiring the government to purchase certain IT and communications products from the original manufacturer or authorized resellers.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2018/11/01/supply-chain-dhs-lemons.aspx 

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OSHA fines contractor and temp staffing agency $152,618

A worker died because a contractor failed to protect the worker, and a temp labor agency failed to ensure worker received safety training.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited All Power Construction Corporation of Huntsville, Alabama and staffing agency Labor Finders of Tennessee Inc. after a temporary employee installing sewer lines suffered a fatal injury in a trench collapse in Huntsville. All Power Construction Corp. faces $139,684 in proposed penalties and Labor Finders of Tennessee Inc. faces the maximum allowed $12,934 in proposed penalties.

OSHA issued willful and serious citations to All Power Construction on November 7, 2017 for allowing employees to work in a trench without cave-in protection, failing to provide a safe means to enter and exit the trench, and not having a competent person inspect the trench to identify potential hazards.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.constructionequipment.com/osha-fines-contractor-and-temp-staffing-agency-152618

See OSHA’s trenching and excavation standards at: https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/trenchingexcavation/standards.html

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DoD’s IG: 11 of 14 IT service contracts were not properly awarded

The Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General (DoD IG) recently published a nonstatistical sample of 14 Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) IT service contracts, valued at $72 million.

The report presented the IG’s findings with respect to the question of whether DCMA properly awarded and administered the contracts. DoD IG found that for 11 of the 14 IT service contracts reviewed, valued at $61 million, DCMA contracting officials did not properly award the contracts.

The IG concluded that DoD awarded $56.4 million in IT services on contracts with poorly defined or nonexistent performance work statements, risking that the services may not meet the performance needs required to successfully execute the DCMA mission.

The problems encountered included:

  • Failure to properly define requirements that included measurable performance standards for 8 contracts;
  • Failure to develop an acquisition plan for one contract;
  • Failure to submit offers for two contracts awarded through the 8(a) program for Small Business Association (SBA) acceptances; and
  • Using flexible ordering agreements to award five of the 14 contracts, which violated Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) system requirements.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/698384

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PSC: Next POTUS should give more attention to acquisition workforce

A significant portion of the report released last week is devoted to improving the federal acquisition workforce’s professionalism and competency. 

PSCThe Professional Services Council (PSC) issued the report, consisting of a set of recommendations to the next President of the United States to improve the operations, effectiveness, and efficiency of the government.  The PSC is an industry association representing technology and professional services businesses.

Among the recommendations made in the PSC publication, entitled “PSC 45:  An Agenda for the Next President of the United States,” is a call for the federal government to improve tradecraft in services acquisition by:

  • Creating standards for the acquisition workforce that are widely recognized and adopted across multiple domains (government, industry, and academia) as a framework for best practices.
  • Creating programs and services to help people enter into and progress within the contract management profession. The desired outcome is for the contract management profession to be recognized as a career field in which education, professional development and advancement opportunities exist for long-term practitioners as well as recent entrants into the profession.
  • Making wider use of special hiring authorities to bring highly skilled practitioners from industry into government.
  • Focusing Contracting Officer incentives on program outcome/mission success to minimize risk avoidance strategies that might make the contracting process simpler but that won’t achieve the desired results.
  • Amending the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act to give OFPP statutory authority over the entire acquisition workforce, including clear authority and responsibility over program managers.
  • Creating a clearly defined career path for program management in the civilian agencies.
  • Instituting new acquisition workforce requirements to include mandatory cross-functional rotations and training.
  • Creating an “Acquisition Excellence Council” with responsibilities including redesigning and restructuring the federal acquisition training system and developing a common evaluation and assessment process.
  • Aligning acquisition workforce requirements and certifications to the type of acquisition the employee will be conducting.

Other recommendations made in PSC’s report have to do with: using technology and new business models to modernize government’s service delivery; improving government operations to better compete globally; and building a better engagement model to bring the best ideas and solutions from industry into government.

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Clearing up confusion about data on nonfederal systems

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is looking for input on a government guide on how to handle sensitive federal information that resides in nonfederal systems and organizations.

NISTLast fall, NIST issued recommendations for securing sensitive data on IT systems at companies that work for the government. The draft standards, released Nov. 18, are aimed at contractors and other nonfederal organizations that store controlled but unclassified information (CUI) in the course of their work.

At the time, NIST officials told FCW that nonfederal organizations must try to meet a wide range of contract clauses. “Conflicting guidance” from multiple agencies can lead to “confusion and inefficiencies” about how to handle sensitive federal information in nonfederal information systems that include contractors, state and local governments, and colleges and universities.

Keep reading this article at: http://fcw.com/articles/2015/04/07/nist-data-guidance.aspx

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