Cutting Contractors

OMB released a report today, “Acquisition and Contracting Improvement Plans and Pilots: Saving Money and Improving Government,” which follows up on its July 2009 directive that agencies trim 7 percent – about $40 billion -- from their contracting budgets over the next two years by improving their buying processes.

Signs of Procurement Revolution

The Senate confirmed Dan Gordon as the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Office of Management and Budget. He comes highly recommended by Steve Kelman, a former holder of this job who was acclaimed as an innovator.

Acquisition 2.0

OMB yesterday released its latest guidance on federal acquisition. This new guidance, Increasing Competition and Structuring Contracts for the Best Results, provides guidelines for agencies to move to more competitive and lower risk types of contracts, along with semi-annual reports on progress.

Bottom-up Procurement Reform

There has been flood of memos and guidance on procurement reform coming out of the White House and OMB in recent months. But an open call for ideas was launched earlier this month via a collaborative project being undertaken by the General Service Administration, the National Academy of Public Administration, and a joint government/industry group called the American Council for Technology/Industry Advisory Council.

The Insourcer's Apprentice

Jeff Liebman is the Obama Administration’s point person for its efforts to cut service contract spending by 7 percent – about $40 billion a year – in part by insourcing work that has been outsourced to conractors, according to Federal Times’ Elise Castelli. Liebman is an executive associate director at the Office of Management and Budget.

New Transparency: Recovery.Gov

There were lots of complaints that the initial Recovery.Gov website was not very helpful. That’s changed. The newly-refreshed website now has lots of new ways of finding and looking at information that is due to pour in next month when the first quarterly reports are due from about 90,000 sources.

Government Executive’s NextGov reporter, Aliya Sternstein provides a good review:

Beyond Business as Usual: Improving Defense Acquisition through Better Buying Power

On behalf of the IBM Center for The Business of Government, we are pleased to present this report, Beyond Business as Usual: Improving Defense Acquisition through Better Buying Power, by Zachary S Huitink and David M Van Slyke, Syracuse University.

Cloudy with a Chance of Success: Contracting for the Cloud in Government

With the movement of government activities to leverage cloud computing, government agencies are now increasingly writing and negotiating contracts with cloud service providers. While agencies have been writing and negotiating contracts for many years, contracts for cloud services present a special set of challenges. In this important report, Shannon Tufts and Meredith Weiss present a detailed analysis of 12 major issues that need to be addressed in all cloud contracts.

Improving Government Contracting: Lessons from Bid Protests of Department of Defense Source Selections

Government administrative processes often receive criticism for focusing on inputs and not outcomes. A specific example of this criticism has been registered by members of the acquisition community regarding source selection processes used for contracting that could be improved to reduce bid protests, the appellate process for contracting. Protests do not occur frequently, but when they do occur the costs are significant—and when sustained, they can impact the process for many subsequent contracts.

IBM Center 2011 Call for Research Report Proposals

Since creation of the IBM Center for The Business of Government more than 13 years ago, it has been our goal to help public sector executives and managers address real-world problems by supporting leading researchers who produce empirical evidence to inform the debates about whether particular management approaches will improve government performance.

Pages