OMB Issues Guidance on Improving Federal Contracting

The Office of Management and Budget issued government-wide contracting guidance to improve visibility of contractor performance, achieve more “balance” between public and private labor and cut down on “risky” contracting. The guidance requires agencies for the first time to track contractor performance through a new unified database – Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS) - intended to improve agencies’ use of contractor performance information. The guidance also seeks to help agencies achieve the “best” mix of public and private labor where agencies will be told to examine at least one program, project or activity that is at risk of relying too heavily on contractors. It also requires agencies to review their existing contracting and acquisition practices to cut 7 percent of spending over two years by strengthening the acquisition workforce, improving planning and market analysis and leveraging government buying power. Some of the cost savings are expected to be achieved by decreasing by 10 percent noncompetitive awards and use of “unnecessary” and “high risk” cost-plus and time-and-material contracts. The executive associate director, Jeff Liebman, added though the guidance discourages such non-competitive vehicles that provide for “open-ended” spending such contracts could still be the best choice when the scope and/or cost of the work is unknown. Liebman suggested, for example, that when an agency has awarded a higher-risk contract and becomes more certain about its requirements the contact can then be converted to a lower risk type one (“http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/procurement”).

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