Short tenures at OFPP hurt acquisition initiatives

Experts say a short tenure has

a tendency to stall initiatives

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy is losing another administrator relatively soon after his confirmation, which may be an impediment to advancing policies, according to one former OFPP official.

Since the late 1990s, administrators have stayed at OFPP for roughly two years. Steve Kelman was the last administrator to stay at OFPP for longer than that, from 1993 to 1997. Kelman is now a Harvard University professor and columnist for Federal Computer Week.

Dan Gordon, the current administrator, will leave at the end of the year for the George Washington University law school, where he will be associate dean of government procurement law studies.

When he leaves his office for the final time, he will have been administrator for about 25 months. Gordon was confirmed in November 2009.

A result of such short terms as administrator is that the office staff is pulled away from their inherently governmental functions of working on governmentwide procurement policies that affect agencies and industry.

“Unfortunately, the news of Dan leaving is that it disrupts the office and the focus on current initiatives,” said Robert Burton, former deputy OFPP administrator, who spent several years in the 2000s as acting administrator. He now is a partner at the Venable law firm.

Confirmation process

As Gordon leaves, the Barack Obama administration will once again have to find a suitable nominee. Once the next nominee is chosen, the White House staff will have to prepare the nominee for the Senate confirmation hearings, along with a crash course in the ongoing initiatives.

“It’s a lot of work,” Burton said.

While that's disruptive enough, Burton said it's also difficult for the office when leaders come and go so frequently. Consistent leadership is good to have, but hard to attain under those circumstances. And it's detrimental to the office-holder himself, Burton added, because accomplishing anything of note in just a couple of years in office is unlikely.

Gordon, however, was one who did manage to make some progress on initiatives during a brief tenure, Burton said.

Gordon's initiatives

One of his most significant initiatives was that Gordon worked to rebuild the federal acquisition workforce.

He gathered support to provide funding for more employee training, and he updated the certification standards for contracting officers. Gordon's reforms also increased training standards for contracting officer's representatives and program managers, both of which are considered part of the acquisition workforce.

Gordon also pushed agencies to think strategically when buying commodities. He encouraged strategic sourcing and getting agencies to take advantage of the government’s size.

“We are—finally—leveraging the federal government’s purchasing power as the world’s largest customer to deliver a better value for the American taxpayers,” Jacob Lew, director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote on the OMBlog Nov. 2.

Gordon also brought attention to innovative methods to purchasing, such as electronic reverse auctions and interagency contracting.

The listening ear, the reasoned mind

In addition, Gordon was someone that government officials and industry leaders felt like they could talk to.

“Perhaps his most important contribution was his tireless efforts to bring open, reasoned debate and discussion back to federal acquisition,” said Stan Soloway, president and CEO of the Professional Services Council.

Gordon sought to mitigate the hyperbole and rhetoric of the procurement world with a Myth-Busters Campaign, Soloway said.

Steve Schooner, a procurement law professor at the George Washington University law school, said Gordon deserves a lot of credit for reviving the Front Line Forum, which was instituted by Kelman and had largely fallen away in recent years.

The forum let the procurement policy leaders hear from the workers dealing daily with government purchasing.

“It's hard to quantify how important this outreach is—not just engaging with the operational community, but actually listening to the concerns and suggestions and aspirations of the people upon whom the entire process depends,” Schooner said.

He said he’s hopeful that future OFPP administrators will recognize the importance of being “the acquisition workforce’s cheerleader-in-chief.”

Schooner said a major difference between Gordon and Kelman is the workforce. Kelman faced trend in the 1990s to decrease the size of the acquisition workforce, which he could not stop. Gordon inherited a far more starved acquisition workforce. One of his high-profile initiatives was rebuilding the workforce, and he had kept it on everyone’s radar screen.

It will be “one that will pay dividends to the government and the taxpayers for years to come,” Schooner said.

Kelman too said the government will benefit from the emphasis on the workforce.

“Dan did a good job fighting for increasing the numbers in the depleted contracting workforce,” he said.

What the next administrator needs

As the search will begin for the next administrator, the nominee needs the know-how understand the procurement world and the skills to see what in that world needs attention, experts say. Decisions and policy initiatives have far-reaching effects, such as rebuilding the acquisition workforce and insourcing government work.

Burton said it’s a very technical field and not merely a management position.

“And with only two years, you don’t want to spend the first six months helping the new administrator understand the Federal Acquisition Regulation, he said.

Gordon brought significant expertise from his 17-year stint at the Government Accountability Office, where he served in several legal roles, finishing as acting general counsel.

“Dan has brought a mixture of great substantive procurement knowledge and great interpersonal skills to this job—exactly the mix of skills you want in an OFPP administrator,” Kelman said.

Gordon set the bar high for the next political appointee to have technical knowledge, according to experts.

And so the search for a new administrator begins.

Read the story: FCW.com - Short tenures at OFPP hurt acquisition initiatives

The Highly Visible Invisible OFPP Administrator

Obama is reforming contracting with no administrator, and he doesn't seem to mind

Just four weeks after being sworn in as president, Barack Obama signed into law the massive stimulus legislation, complete with $787 billion to spend and significant changes to the government’s contracting regulations.

Two weeks later, Obama declared contracting reform to be a top priority for his administration and issued a memo on some of the changes he had in mind. Since then, he has frequently stated what he sees as a dire need for reforms and oversight of contractors.

Obama signed another bill in May that changed the rules for the Defense Department's procurement of major weapons systems.

Through all of this, he seems to be missing a key player: the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

Obama has chosen a national chief information officer — Vivek Kundra — and picked Aneesh Chopra to be chief technology officer. They quickly became prominent figures, and Kundra has pushed technology as an important part of acquisition reform.

But the president has no procurement policy chief.

The Office of Management and Budget has issued guidance on how agencies are supposed to spend the stimulus money, approved numerous new regulations and nearly completed a definition of inherently governmental functions.

But no chief.

In theory, the OFPP administrator is a key player in anything to do with government acquisition and is downright essential during times of major reform. Nevertheless, the changes are apparently moving along without an administrator. Some experts have started to wonder if the role is as important as others had assumed.

However, the push to find a nominee is building now that OMB’s deputy director for management, Jeff Zients, has been confirmed, said Kundra, who is involved in the search for an OFPP leader.

Even so, the administrator’s desk remains empty, while outside, the acquisition and contracting world is spinning faster than ever.

“There’s something to be said for somebody who knows how to grab on to things that are already in motion,” said Allan Burman, president of Jefferson Solutions, a division of Jefferson Consulting Group.

As the world turns

The government is witnessing some of the biggest changes in contracting in more than a decade. Obama took an about-face from President George W. Bush in a memo issued March 4 that comments on the troubled area of contracting and indicates how important he considers reforming the system.

Experts say the OFPP leader will be in a powerful position. He or she will have the president’s ear and a big agenda to tackle — bigger than in many past administrations.

“This is going to be a highly visible job with senior-level interest in what’s going on,” said Burman, who was acting administrator of OFPP starting in 1988 and confirmed in that role in 1990.

Obama wants tighter oversight of noncompetitive contracts and those without fixed prices. He wants an acquisition workforce that is capable of overseeing contractors. He has also told agencies to use outsourcing only when it’s absolutely necessary so the government can wean itself off its dependence on the private sector.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which Obama signed into law in February, is disbursing billions of dollars to save the economy, and the law dictates how agencies can spend that money and what contractors must report on when they get the cash. Experts say those rules have set a new standard for acquisition transparency and reporting and thus will spread to all government contracting in the near future. They say a leader needs to guide those changes appropriately.

A few blocks from the empty OFPP administrator’s office, Congress is passing reform legislation. Members are changing small-business set-aside rules and thinking about ways to revamp DOD’s acquisition system so the department can buy information technology faster. Many acquisition experts believe Congress makes rules without really understanding the issues. And that’s another reason it’s important to have an OFPP administrator.

All this activity is happening while the government remains on a fast track to spend $600 billion a year.

Then there’s the acquisition workforce. It’s overworked and demoralized. Employees are waiting for a strong leader to offer them some relief. For several years, they have felt battered by intense scrutiny by Congress, inspectors general and the Government Accountability Office. They want a leader high in the Obama administration’s ranks to protect them.

Catching up

When finally confirmed by the Senate, the administrator will need to sprint to catch up with what’s been happening in the acquisition field, said Angela Styles, OFPP administrator from 2001 to 2003 and now a partner at Crowell and Moring’s Government Contracts Group.

The White House has been working for months to draw up memos and craft a strategy. Most important for OFPP, Obama has brought the traditionally back-office duties of negotiating and signing contracts to the forefront of his agenda.

“We’ll have to break bad habits that have built up over many years,” he said. “But we can’t keep spending good money after bad.”

The first test of the new OFPP administrator’s authority will be how far he or she can stray from the goals Obama outlined in his March 4 memo, according to one expert.

Steve Kelman, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy from 1993 to 1997 and now a Harvard University professor and Federal Computer Week columnist, said the memo reads more like something written by lawmakers than a document crafted by experts in contracting.

He said the OFPP administrator must wrestle with nitty-gritty acquisition issues, such as how to navigate performance-based contracting and improve the use of contractors’ past-performance information in making awards. The administrator also has to continue melding contracting officers, their technical representatives and program managers into a team as they manage millions of contracts.

Kundra, who is pushing for a speedier, simpler acquisition process, said the OFPP administrator must understand the challenges of government procurement while also believing that the government needs to find faster ways to buy ever-evolving IT.

The administrator should “recognize we can’t treat technology procurements in the same way we do buying buildings,” Kundra said.

Furthermore, a report from industry and government experts urges the administrator to compel agencies to approach acquisitions holistically when they write contract requirements. The administrator will need to improve communication between agencies and industry, the said, and he or she will need to convince employees that technological innovations can improve the acquisition process.

Unfortunately, the delay in naming an OFPP administrator means “people are always going to know you weren’t the one who wrote the agenda,” Styles said. Therefore, the administrator will need to find a way to embrace and personalize the administration's priorities.

Styles said she received her priority — competitive sourcing — from Bush administration officials, but she was involved in drafting the procurement policy from the start because she was nominated in March 2001 and confirmed three months later. Her role was to implement the ideas of her bosses. The same will be true for the next administrator, she added.

When a key position remains vacant while other officials lack deep knowledge of an issue, it can result in a misguided — if not directionless — agenda, said Bob Woods, commissioner of the General Services Administration’s Federal Technology Service from 1994 to 1997 and now president of Topside Consulting. That’s the sort of situation the new OFPP administrator will face.

"You don't want to be the last wolf to the feast," he said. "There’s been a lot of chewing going on since you've not been there."

Missing person

The longer the position remains unfilled, the more some experts question its importance. Congress and the administration seem to be setting policies just fine without an OFPP administrator, they say.

“Here we are in August, and we don’t have a nominee yet,” said Robert Burton, former OFPP deputy administrator and now a partner at Venable law firm. “It’s obviously not a priority yet.”

Burton pointed out that Lesley Field is doing a fine job as acting OFPP administrator, and he questioned the urgency of choosing a permanent administrator. “It’s not like the initiatives don’t go forward,” Burton said. “It’s not like the career people don’t talk with other offices.”

OFPP would work just as well with a career employee in charge, who would likely stay longer than the typical two-year tenure of most OFPP administrators, Burton said [tk: ok?]. Plus, he or she would have the added benefit of understanding the issues involved after having risen through the office’s ranks.

“Acquisition is nothing but a lot of rules and regulations,” and it demands a strong legal background, not a political connection, Burton said. Deputy administrators work on many aspects of reforms, and they’re often dealing with agency leaders on regulations. Burton also ran OFPP during many of his years there as administrators came and went.

Kelman said there are benefits to appointing a retired career acquisition official to be OFPP administrator because that person wouldn't need a crash-course in what’s happening and why.

In the meantime, highly visible officials are talking about innovative acquisition reforms. For example, Kundra is calling for saving money through an IT storefront, cloud computing and software-as-a-service initiatives. He wants to use technology to speed the slow and deliberate acquisition process. And the tech-savvy Obama administration is putting a lot of weight behind Kundra.

“The administration is making that post very visible,” Burton said. Kundra’s prominence might suggest the decline of the OFPP administrator’s role as a leader in acquisition reform, Burton added.

However, Deidre Lee, OFPP administrator from 1998 to 2000 and now executive vice president of federal affairs and operations at the Professional Services Council, said Kundra could be a strong ally of the OFPP administrator.

“Two or three people at that high of a position with like minds can do a lot,” she said.

Although neither of them has much statutory authority or budget control, “one of the most important things anyone can have is a bully pulpit,” Kelman said. The two leaders could inspire people and soothe an anxious acquisition workforce, he added.

Only a few people are capable of doing that. Lee said that when acquisition employees make a mistake, the administration’s “leadership has got to step up there and say, 'Yep, we tried it, made a mistake, noted [it] and moved on. Let’s try again.'”

Everything is in place to move the workforce forward with the innovations that technology allows, experts say, but people are waiting for leaders to show them the way.

“I think the lion’s share is ready, but it’s going to take a lot of courage,” said John Nyce, associate director of the Acquisition Services Directorate at the Interior Department’s National Business Center. He added that they’re looking for someone to stand up for them.

Lee said the workforce is in huddle mode. Employees have learned that they can avoid attention by not moving forward. “That’s why leadership is so critical,” she said.

And employees understand that a political appointee has more access to key decision-makers. “The better the relationships, the better job you do,” Styles said, mentioning Kelman and David Safavian, who was OFPP administrator from 2004 to 2005 until he resigned during a scandal.

Some experts believe the administrator should remain a political appointee, even if a career person is just as capable. That approach ensures respect from other appointees throughout the government and shows that the administrator shares the president’s goals and agenda.

Furthermore, the president’s support for the administrator will make employees listen to what he or she has to say and pay attention to the direction they’re headed.

“A lot of the workforce longs for good leadership,” Kelman said. “And it’s up to that person to show he’s willing to go out of his way to work for them.”

Read the story: FCW.com News - Acquisition reforms rush forward while top OFPP seat remains empty

Kundra aids search for procurement leader

Top IT official believes procurement policy must be flexible

Six months have passed since President Barack Obama took office, and the chair reserved for the leader of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy remains empty. Now Vivek Kundra, the federal chief information officer, is helping the administration look for a suitable nominee.

Kundra is drawing on his information technology expertise and mandate to seek an OFPP administrator who will “recognize we can’t treat technology procurements in the same way we do buying buildings,” he said.

Jeffrey Zients, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, is the point man for the quest. Finding the next OFPP administrator has been a top priority for Zients since his Senate confirmation on June 19. No one has been nominated for the OFPP post, and there are few rumors about whom the candidates might be.

However, experts expressed surprise that CIO Kundra is so actively involved in the search.

Bob Woods, president of Topside Consulting and former commissioner of the General Services Administration’s Federal Technology Service, said agencies conduct a broad array of procurements. Buying battleships and buying large quantities of paper are different kinds of procurements, and Kundra's involvement might signal an over-emphasis on IT, Woods said.

Nevertheless, Kundra has campaigned vigorously for simplifying the buying process. “Everyone in government shouldn’t have to have a Ph.D. in procurement,” he said. “Why is it so complex?”

During a discussion July 27 with reporters and editors from the 1105 Government Information Group, parent company of Federal Computer Week, Kundra said the government needs to do a better job of using technology to make the whole process easier.

Kundra has proposed creating a virtual storefront where agencies could quickly buy services, such as cloud computing. Although he said GSA’s Multiple Award Schedules program and GSA Advantage Web site have many benefits, he said there are even faster ways to work. Each time an agency wants to buy IT, it shouldn’t have to start a two-year procurement process, he said, adding that by the time the contract is awarded, the technology is outdated.

However, many experts say the process isn’t always that time-consuming.

Kundra said his intent is to make buying IT easier and more intuitive via his proposed virtual storefront, which would mirror systems in the commercial marketplace, such as Amazon.com and eBay.

That approach may not fly, say critics. “At some point, he’s going to have to come to terms with the fact that the government is built to be inefficient,” said one government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Companies such as Amazon and eBay don’t contract with the government because they don’t want to have to abide by the government's rules, the official added.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Kundra aids search for procurement leader

Field surveys landscape as chief

Several years after an adventurous ski trip, Lesley Field still wonders which one of her friends led them to the Mer de Glace (“Sea of Ice”), a glacier in the French Alps at an altitude of nearly 8,000 feet, without a map or a guide.

“I don’t think I fully realized what we’d done until we got to the bottom,” said Field, who comes from a family of daring skiers. “But honestly, it was probably the best skiing experience I’ve ever had.”

The Sea of Ice is nearly 700 feet deep and more than 4 miles long. “It was wide open,” she said.

In her first interview since she took over as acting administrator at the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, Field used skiing metaphors to describe her role.

While skiing, “you can see the topography, you can see the people, you can see where you’re going,” she said. “You see very far out into the future.”

Field has recently had to refocus her long-range view of procurement policy. In mid-July, she was studying the acquisition workforce and strategic sourcing as one of several OFPP policy analysts. Little more than a month later, she was whisked to the top of the governmentwide policy office to replace Deputy Administrator Robert Burton, who retired in July. When Administrator Paul Denett left Sept. 2, Field was appointed to the acting role.

She had arrived at OFPP on assignment from the Transportation Department in 2000. Kenneth Oscar, the office’s acting administrator at the time, said Field arrived with enthusiasm and a desire to see the big picture.

To help frame that picture, Field has dealt with federal procurement from several angles. She began her career with a summer internship at the National Academy of Sciences, where she worked in its contracting and grants office. In 1990, she entered a yearlong internship at DOT. Her managers noticed the procurement experience on her résumé and guided her toward acquisition.

Listen to Field discuss the acquisition field as a career.

Field worked at DOT for 10 years, rising from a contract specialist to a contracting officer to a management analyst to a procurement policy analyst. She also took assignments at the Federal Aviation Administration and Coast Guard before landing at OFPP.

Field has worked in acquisition for 18 years. From the time she was an intern, she enjoyed seeing how acquisitions she was involved in led to real benefits for agencies, she said. DOT officials allowed her and other interns to see the results of their work, so after she worked on a contract for sign-language interpreters, she was able to watch those interpreters help people in need. She has long been an advocate for requiring agencies to buy information technology that is accessible for people with disabilities.

And while on detail at FAA, she visited an air traffic control center in Leesburg, Va., and listened to controllers and pilots talk as they guided aircraft from one sector to another.

“I don’t think I ever realized there’s a giant highway” in the sky, she said.

Through those experiences, she began to understand the connection between the papers she was signing as a contracting officer and the daily work of agencies, Field said.

“It made all the difference in the world in someone’s ability to do their job,” she said.

Based on her experiences in taking temporary assignments at other agencies, Field said she is convinced that such rotations are important to keeping the acquisition workforce engaged. People can grow tired of a job, and rotating employees among agencies can keep them motivated, she said.

“We are in a very good position to offer that where we can,” she said. “Retention becomes just as important as recruitment and development.”

Listen to Field discuss job rotations.

“She’s passionate about improving the acquisition workforce,” said Burton, who’s now a partner at the law firm Venable.

Because of her varied assignments, Field was able to develop in-depth knowledge of how departments run their operations and incorporate that knowledge into governmentwide policy.

“When I got here, I realized you can really take the operational experience and really start to discover why the policy role is so interesting,” she said.

OFPP’s long-range view of procurement requires its analysts to connect the dots between agencies, considering what each of them does and how. OFPP finds best practices wherever they might be and spreads the word about them throughout agencies.

“We have a very unique position here in the world,” she said.

OFPP also has to deal with competing interests and agendas, Burton said. The administrator has to interact effectively with numerous groups that have their own priorities, including Congress and industry advocacy organizations.

“The art of negotiation becomes essential in that position,” he said.

Field said she recognizes those difficulties and likens them to skiing, where some terrain is easier to cross than other stretches. But the skier must traverse it all to reach the destination.

Oscar and Burton agreed that Field has a way with people that will ultimately help her as OFPP’s acting and deputy administrator.

Oscar has seen Field’s ability to draw people with contradictory views and ideas into a unified group. “She was able to get things done,” he said.

She needs to use that ingenuity to her advantage, he added. To leave her mark on OFPP, she must push forward her agenda, goals and objectives, and not merely fill the position of acting administrator, Oscar said.

“She’s got to act like she’s ‘it,’ go as if she’s the administrator,” he said. Even in an acting capacity, Field could be in charge for as long as a year.

Burton agreed, saying Field must be aggressive in her leadership. He was OFPP’s acting administrator twice and said the office deals with nonpartisan issues, so having the political backing of the presidential administration is less important than it is for other agency leaders.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Field surveys landscape as chief

A push for more competition

Departments will likely soon feel more pressure from policy-makers to buy more products and services through competitive bids, rather than sole-source contracts.

The federal government has competed approximately 64 percent of its procurements (based on dollar value) each year since fiscal 2005, although total procurement spending has increased from $371.8 billion in fiscal 2005, according to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

Members of Congress and the Bush administration’s chief procurement official said they believe agencies can do more, and they are looking for new ways to push agencies along.

Read the story: FCW.com News - A push for more competition

Denett: Agencies can compete more contracts

The government held competitions for 64 percent of its contracting dollars in fiscal 2007 — a stable percentage of the past three years — but the chief procurement officer said agencies can grow beyond that number.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Denett: Agencies can compete more contracts

Competitive sourcing gets a new name

Competitive sourcing no longer carries that name. The system's new name is "commercial services management," officials said today.

With the name change, acquisition officials are recognizing the ways agencies are trying improve their commercial operations, according to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. Also, agencies are using several techniques to do so, such as competitive sourcing, OFPP said in a memo released today.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Competitive sourcing gets a new name

New guidelines to improve interagency contracting

Long before Paul Denett became administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in 2006, interagency contracts had multiplied out of control, at least in the eyes of some procurement experts. Denett now says he wants “a little less of the Wild West” in interagency contracting.

OFPP identified one category of interagency contracting — multiagency contracts — as particularly needing stricter controls. Denett targeted MACs in a new policy guidance that OFPP issued June 6, but some procurement experts say it may be too little, too late.

Read the story: FCW.com News - OFPP offers new guidelines to improve interagency contracting

New interagency contracts might need approval

Officials might finally be cracking down on interagency contracts after years of concern about their proliferation. Paul Denett, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, wrote in a June 6 memo that OFPP wants to establish a process for reviewing business cases for new multiagency contracts (MACs).

Such a review could help stem abuses of MACs, said Neal Fox, consultant and former assistant commissioner of acquisition at the General Services Administration. The Federal Acquisition Regulation has specific rules governing MACs, but agencies often ignore them. Meanwhile, creating MACs allows agencies to skirt OFPP rules and oversight that apply to other contracts, Fox said.

Read the story: FCW.com News - New interagency contracts might need approval

New requirements for interagency agreements

Agencies now have guidelines from the lead federal procurement office designed to help them make sound business decisions and better manage assisted acquisitions.

Paul Denett, administrator of the Office Federal Procurement Policy, wrote in a memo accompanying the 70-page document that agencies currently lack a precise understanding of their responsibilities in interagency acquisitions. Without knowing what’s expected of the agency requesting the assistance and agency providing it, each party has struggled with poor planning, inconsistent uses of contract competitions, weak management and concerns about financial controls.

Interagency contracts appeal to contracting officers who are understaffed and under pressure to meet their agencies’ acquisition requirements quickly, officials have said, while adding agencies can buy the wrong thing as quickly.

Read the story: FCW.com News - New requirements for interagency agreements

Law requires agencies to ask contractors about health benefits

Under the fiscal 2008 omnibus appropriations law, agencies now must get more detailed information on contractors’ health and retirement benefits when hosting public/private competitions for government work.

Each proposal an agency receives must include information on the cost for health and retirement benefits for the prime contractor’s and the subcontractor’s employees, according to a Feb. 20 memo from Paul Denett, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Law requires agencies to ask contractors about health benefits

OFPP to rein in interagency contracts

The widespread award and use of multiple-award contracts in the past three years have caused some agency confusion and borderline illegal practices. Although some problems have been cleared up recently, the Bush administration is deciding on the best way to oversee the hundreds of contracts agencies are using.

An Office of Federal Procurement Policy memo calling for changes in interagency contracting has been circulating among federal acquisition chiefs, inspectors general and chief financial officers for months, while the Chief Acquisition Officers Council is working with OFPP Administrator Paul Denett to set up a governance process for such contracts.

The draft document, which is nearly 40 pages long, establishes agencies’ roles and responsibilities in interagency agreements.

Bush administration officials say they hope to use the policy changes to slow but not halt the proliferation of such contracts. The memo will address the way that agencies manage and use the contracts, and it will target duplicative contracts that offer little additional value.

Read the story: FCW.com News - OFPP to rein in interagency contracts

OFPP: Half of contracts must be performance-based in '08

Officials expect agencies to make half their contracts performance-based acquisitions in fiscal 2008, an increase from the goal for 2007, according to a new memo.

Paul Denett, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, raised the goal from 45 percent to 50 percent “to continue to motivate agencies to use the [acquisition] strategy,” the Dec. 5 memo states.

OFPP said it expects agencies to exceed 2007's 45 percent goal based on the data compiled in the Federal Procurement Data System.

Read the rest of the story: FCW.com News - OFPP: Half of contracts must be performance-based in '08

OFPP: Half of contracts must be performance-based in '08

Officials expect agencies to make half their contracts performance-based acquisitions in fiscal 2008, an increase from the goal for 2007, according to a new memo.

Paul Denett, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, raised the goal from 45 percent to 50 percent “to continue to motivate agencies to use the [acquisition] strategy,” the Dec. 5 memo states.

Read the rest of the story: FCW.com News - OFPP: Half of contracts must be performance-based in '08

OFPP: Better training gets results

Paul Denett, the Office of Management and Budget’s top procurement official, likes to get an audience’s attention by describing contracting officer’s technical representatives as “Mikeys,” inexperienced but energetic employees who are willing to take on the job, despite knowing little about what is expected.

However, in today’s marketplace, Mikeys don’t survive. As administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, Denett said he wants to provide training for technical representatives as part of a broader effort to expand the skills of the federal acquisition workforce.

Read the rest of the story: FCW.com News - OFPP: Better training gets results

OFPP issues policy requiring training for support workers

Employees assigned to support contracting officers now must meet common training standards, as procurement officials attempt to tie together the diverse parts of the acquisition process.

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy has set up a new program that establishes a training program for contracting officer technical representatives. It also standardizes the training and skills necessary for the job. The program requires COTRs to meet certain competencies for certification and maintain their certification through continuous learning.

COTRs follow up on contracts after they’re awarded, watching for problems that may arise. They also help the contracting officer and program manager keep things working smoothly.

Read the rest of the story: FCW.com News - OFPP issues policy requiring training for support workers

Procurement chief chides IGs

The Office of Management and Budget’s Paul Denett said some agency inspectors general are emboldened now more than in the past, often to the point of essentially directing agencies’ programs.

Denett, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, said he believes some IGs are overstepping the boundaries of their statutory role, adding that “they get aggravating sometimes.”

Those comments, which Denett made at a recent industry conference, highlight the growing strained relations between IGs and the agencies they oversee. Auditors and procurement experts say the relationship has become tense at some agencies.

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Denett: IGs are 'aggravating,' and overstep boundaries

Inspectors general are overstepping their bounds in federal contracting, a chief procurement official said today.

The IGs have taken over the role of program manager, Paul Denett, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, said in a speech at a Coalition for Government Procurement conference.

“They get aggravating sometimes,” Denett also said after his speech.

Read the rest of the story: FCW.com News - Denett: IGs are 'aggravating,' and overstep boundaries

Feds seek the art of negotiation

Contracting officers provided a snapshot view of their skills in a new survey that gives policy-makers insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the federal acquisition workforce.

Federal contracting officers and specialists, who made up 80 percent of the survey respondents, said they need more training in three areas that affect their ability to make good deals for the government: the art of negotiation, strategic planning and contract dispute resolution.

Read the rest of the story: FCW.com News - Feds seek the art of negotiation

The competition question

For decades, the federal government moved slowly and deliberately whenever it needed to buy something. In contrast to past acquisition procedures, today’s acquisition process is swift and lean. But critics have discovered a downside to speedy acquisitions. All that speed, they say, has undermined fair competition for government dollars — a hallmark of federal contracting.

Read the rest of the story: FCW.com News - The competition question