Timeline: Congress crafts acquisition policy
Competition in Contracting Act (1984)
"You can look at the Competition in Contracting Act as the Constitution of federal procurement," said Roger Waldron, president of The Coaltion for Government Procurement. "It laid the foundational rules with regard to how the federal procurement system was going to operate with a focus on a full and open competition to the maximum extent practicle. … It is the landmark legislation in enshrining competition in the statutes."
Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act (1994)
FASA sought to improve acquisition in three broad areas, according to Tim DiNapoli, acting director at GAO's acquisition and sourcing management office. First, it aimed to reduce unique purchasing requirements. Second, it sought to increase the use of simplified acquisition procedures for low-income procurement. Third, it sought to obtain goods and services faster in order to reduce the in- house cost of doing business.
Rather than the federal agencies describing in specific detail what they needed, the drafters of the act sought to encourage the agencies to focus instead on what their outcomes were. "Use a more performance-based contracting as opposed to the use of a specific requirement," DiNapoli said.
To facilitate this, Congress raised the threshold from $25,000 to $100,000, so that procurements under $100,000 could be acquired more simply, with fewer rules and regulations.
"They also authorized the use of a government purchase card for very small-dollar procurement," DiNapoli said. "If they're under $2,500, for example, federal agencies could use the purchase card to acquire that. It makes for much more of a commercial approach."
FASA also established a preference for multiple-award contracting.
Clinger-Cohen Act (1996)
the Clinger-Cohen Act eliminated the exclusive authority of the General Services Administration to acquire technology and allowed individual federal agencies to assume that role.
"The big change that Clinger-Cohen made to the acquisition system was getting rid of the GSA Board of Contract Appeal."
That board was a special bid protest body that had been set up originally in the Brooks Act to hear complaints from disappointed bidders on contracts, specifically in the IT area.
"It was very, let's call it, 'pro-protester and anti-government decision,'" Kelman said. "It second-guessed government decisions a lot and almost all major IT contracts were protested through that GSA Board of Contract Appeal and they had a much more lenient standard for upholding a protest than the GAO does."
Clinger-Cohen introduced the use of Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts, which allow agencies, once they have specific needs, to place orders against those contracts to streamline the process.
Federal Acquisition and Reform (1996)
One of the key elements of FARA regarded the competitive range determination, which allowed contracting officers to limit the number of bids they were going to actively evaluate. Contracting officers could then focus on the bids that had a chance of winning the contract as opposed to considering each and every bid that might be submitted.
HUBZone Empowerment Act (1998)
"The procurement system over many, many years — not just the mid-'90s, but well prior to that and since — has vacillated back and forth between a number of competing themes," said William Woods, director of acquisition and sourcing management at the Government Accountability Office. "One theme is efficiency, that we need to do things to get the best value for the taxpayer and do it quickly. But another theme is fairness, that Congress believes that we ought to use the procurement system to promote certain socio-economic goals."
Congress passed the HUBZone Empowerment Act in order to give a boost to small business located in Historically Underutilized Business Zones in bidding on contracts.
Services Acquisition Reform Act (2003)
"The GSA Schedules, probably in the early '90s, maybe 60 or 70 percent, maybe even a little bit higher, were product-based acquisitions," Walrdon said. Waldron said 55 to 65 percent of acquisitions are services today.
"Services, I think, are a bit harder to acquire. It's harder to write requirements around them. It's harder to evaluate them, what access to the commercial market, so I think the Services Acquistion Reform Act was an effort to address that in part," he said.
First, it created a civilian acquisition officer in each agency to oversee the procurement process. Second, it encouraged incentives for using performance-based contracts for services.
"It also helped agencies to establish a more capable workforce with regards to establishing a workforce training fund, with some of the intent being to improve how contracting officers could improve their skills and capabilities in buying goods and services," DiNapoli said.
SARA also established the Acquistion Advisory Panel, made up of 13 people from the government and private sector, who reported to Congress and the Office of Management and Budget on the procurement system.
Weapons System Acquisition Reform Act (2009)
This came about because the Government Accountability Office had found many of the major weapons systems DoD had contracted for had come in over cost and behind schedule and were not performing as promised.Federal News Radio provides another great short overview of US Federal acquisition in its series, Inside the World's Biggest Buyer
"It focused on some upfront cost assessments and made sure there was a framework in place at the Department of Defense to honest and reliable cost estimates before the department committed to specific program," said William Woods, director of acquisition and sourcing management at the Government Accountability Office.
"Before the department and Congress committed significant funds to major systems, we had to be sure that the technology was mature and reliable," Woods said. "We're no longer relying on just contractor estimates."
One of the items in this series that resonates with me is this one:
Acquisition workforce strategy is the answer to DoD's problems
Of the eight findings, three of them concern the acquisition workforce, a large group of dedicated public servants who work diligently, but ultimately struggle within a broken system that is focused on avoiding mistakes rather than producing more, in less time, at less cost.
Our task force found that the skills of the acquisition work force, as a whole, have atrophied and that DoD needs to significantly reinvest in human capital. This reinvestment should be directed at three specific problems:
First, the military acquisition workforce, through no fault of their own, has become detached from the operating forces and lacks key perspective and experience. Second, acquisition workforce management practices, in part causing the aforementioned problem, also contribute to military members being put at a disadvantage with their peers in the operating forces. Third, the department lacks sufficient systems engineering capability that is necessary for inherently governmental functions necessary for timely decisions and tradeoff relative to technical feasibility and cost.
DoD recognizes the need to reinvest in human capital, improving the quality and training of the workforce. One of the major problems is that acquisition personnel do not have an appropriate understanding of operational needs. The acquisition system is so complex that its specialists usually work exclusively within that field. Mid-career military officers attend schools that train them to become acquisition specialists and once they gain the additional occupational training, they stay within the acquisition system for the remainder of their careers. Civilian employees in acquisition do not have sufficient access to the education and assignments that would prepare them for increased responsibilities.
Acquisition personnel have not been served well by existing management practices, particularly the military members. Civilians dominate the acquisition workforce, unlike the services or the combatant commands. There are 136,000 civilians and 16,000 military. The civilians manage uniformed members who work within the acquisition system, not the parent armed service. This puts military personnel at a disadvantage compared to their counterparts for career opportunities and promotions.
The current approach does not provide military officers with the requisite experience, skills, and qualifications needed for positions of increasing responsibility in the acquisition field. The Service Chiefs, in collaboration with senior acquisition leaders, should be accountable for the career path management, training, education and particularly promotions and equal promotion rates of military acquisition personnel.
The department also lacks the organic system engineering capability that is essential to the inherently governmental evaluation and decisions. The shortfall in system engineering hinders the department's ability to assess technical, cost, schedule and viable alternatives.
DoD needs to establish a human capital strategy for developing qualified system engineers capable of effective oversight and decision-making, prioritize near term needs and reassign system engineers to meet them, and increase the quality and capability of military and civilian engineers in the acquisition process and increase the sharing of resources across commands.
I think that is all a bit paradoxical in the actions of the recent era to outsource more and more of the back-office work of government, procurement and other government functions, to more civilian contractors.
The advantage of short timeline studies such as this is that it isolates the milestones against the noise of the issues of the day, and the outcomes which describe the milestones give a better perspective on which elements in the debate prevailed. In other words, which political philosophies or interest groups got their way.
The real work of procurement is always going to be political at some level, and the more that process intercedes, the less effective procurement will ultimately become regardless of which high mount it started from. Meddling begets more of the same. Things not broken get fixed, things broken get put into operation. It is not a dispassionate business.
One last golden service provided by Federal Radio News proves the point:
Acquisition bill trackerGo there and see what I mean.
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