OFPP on acquisition reform listening tour

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy is in listening mode.

On Thursday, senior officials received an earful from vendors, good government groups and federal employees, mostly about the problems with the federal acquisition process.

Larry Allen, president of the Coalition for Government Procurement, says there needs to be more focus on the front end.

John Palatiello, president of John Palatiello and Associates, reminded officials that the Brooks Act for architecture and engineering services still is in effect and it is a well-recognized and established model to buy these services.

Yet it is not being thought of as part of the solution to the governmentwide acquisition challenges.

Several audience members-both current and former federal employees-expressed frustration and limited optimism that anything would change even with the Obama administration's plan to issue guidance around four areas.

By Sept. 30, OFPP will address competition, type of contracts used by agencies, acquisition workforce and the multi-sector workforce-as required by the President's March 4 memo.

OFPP also will issue guidance in July to assist agencies in identifying contracts that are considered wasteful, inefficient or not likely to meet agency needs.

Throughout the entire four-hour panel discussion on the four guidances due in September, nearly every topic turned back to the challenges with the acquisition workforce.

"The workforce lacks the numbers, the skill sets and experiences to solve many of these acquisition issues," says Trey Hodgkins, vice president for national security and procurement policy with TechAmerica.

"Many legislative proposals attempt to deal with the symptoms of these shortcomings, but not address the sickness."

Whether the topic was competition or type of contract or the multi-sector workforce, presenters and audience members always started at the troubled state of the acquisition workforce.

The Obama administration-and the Bush administration before it did-recognizes the shortage of qualified acquisition workers as their biggest challenge.

"When we meet, we do talk about the workforce as we talk about implementation of the President's memo," says Jeff Liebman, executive associate director of the Office of Management and Budget.

"We talk about tools; we talk about more training because you have to do it effectively. Otherwise you will wind up doing protests and spending a lot of time on that. We are looking at the workforce and what increased knowledge it needs in areas of source selection or doing price-cost analysis so that when we do compete we do it in a way industry is satisfied and don't feel the need to protest the decision."

David Drabkin, the General Services Administration's deputy chief acquisition officer and senior procurement executive, says the workforce issue needs help in several areas.

He says civilian agencies need to more broadly define what an acquisition worker is.

"The Defense Department defined 13 functional areas around acquisition, while most civilian agencies barely define three," he says.

"In every study or scandal-and I hate to use that word-where acquisition is involved at the end of the story or report, people always write there is not enough people with the right skills to get the job done."

Drabkin says, DoD for instance, has taken a five percent acquisition workforce cut every year for an eight year period starting in the 1990s.

"We've created huge demands, but haven't gotten the workforce sized correctly or trained it to do the job," he says.

Hodgkins says his industry association heartily agrees with Drabkin's assessment, and recommends several possible fixes.

He says the hiring practices of the government need to be addressed first and foremost. Hodgkins says training must be funded appropriately and offered broadly.

But Rick Hopf, a former GSA acquisition official and now a vice president with Acquisition Solutions, warned of repeating the same mistakes as in the past.

"How many times do we want to solve the same problems?" Hopf asks from the audience. "Maybe we need better knowledge management and figure out what hasn't worked in the past and why?"

Hopf adds that there is a disconnect between the contracting officers and the program managers.

He says one possible answer is to shift the role of the chief acquisition officer to focus on bringing the sometimes disparate pieces of the acquisition process closer together.

Other presenters warned of limiting the use of cost type contracts.

Eleanor Spector, who works for Lockheed Martin and represents the Aerospace Industries Association, says industry cannot afford to do development contracts that are firm fixed price.

She points to failed projects over the last four decades where the government used firm fixed price contracts.

Alan Chvotkin, senior vice president at the Professional Services Council, offers some ideas for more oversight of contract type. He says agencies should justify their decision to use any type of contract.

They should also conduct mandatory reviews of contract type over a certain dollar threshold and offer more training to acquisition professionals on what types of contracts are most appropriate.

"We are at a critical junction in federal acquisition policy," Liebman says.

"Since 2001, the volume of federal contracting has more than doubled to over $500 billion, but the government management capacity and policy making in acquisition area has not kept up with the importance of sound acquisition practice to the success of government endeavors."

Liebman says OMB will hold future dialogues on these guidances, and formally is accepting comments through July 17.

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On the Web:

FederalNewsRadio -- FAIR Institute releases report on insourcing

FederalNewsRadio -- DoD Acquisition law a good start, culture change needed

FederalNewsRadio -- Acquisition workforce is in need of leadership, training

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