The draft report of the Acquisition Advisory Panel, released in December, is drawing mixed reviews from the federal contracting community. The report’s recommendations to improve federal contracting, boost the acquisition workforce and better define ethical boundaries in contractor/agency relationships range from the good to the misguided in the eyes of agencies, companies and advocates.
No one knows yet whether the recommendations will produce procurement changes. The panel — created by the Services Acquisition Reform Act of 2003 and often called the SARA panel — will release a final version of the report by Jan. 20. After that, however, Congress and the Office of Federal Procurement Policy will decide whether to adopt some, all or none of the recommendations.
Stan Soloway, president of the Professional Services Council, said the change in congressional leadership might not matter. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has taken the gavel as chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, and former chairman — and SARA author — Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) has become ranking member. The two members of Congress have a collegial relationship, and Davis’ new role on the committee is not likely to signal a quick death for the SARA panel’s work, Soloway said.
More worrisome, he said, is the possibility that policy-makers will cherry-pick a few appealing recommendations and miss the broad picture of federal services contracting. Trying to approach overarching issues point by point hasn’t worked, he added.
The report begins with a chapter on commercial practices, a topic that the panel returns to in later chapters. It addresses the role of small firms, the ethical rules that should govern contractor employees in blended workforces, the size of the acquisition workforce and improvements to the quality of publicly available procurement data.
Soloway said the panel did not seem to fully understand the distinction between products and services, a concern that the council developed as the SARA panel met and discussed the salient issues. The panel also blurred the line between defining commercial services and procuring them, he said.
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