Letter: Plenty of procurement data available
A reader finds that the United States provides data on procurement performance, disagreeing with columnist Steve Kelman.
Regarding "Kelman: An embarrassing question:" I'm surprised Steve Kelman was not able to be more responsive to his Brazilian colleague who asked him for information about U.S. procurement performance. My company's clients have been able to answer these questions for years.
Thanks in part to the government's growing commitment to procurement transparency and to reforms Steve himself was involved in during the late 1990s, the OMB and the agencies have begun making a host of valuable procurement performance measures available to the public. A partial list of these sources includes:
1) President's Management Agenda (PMA) Scorecards
2) Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) evaluations
2) Detailed A-300 Budget Justifications
3) Agency and Bureau Performance Reports
4) CPIC Status Reports
5) Congressional Budget Justifications
6) Congressional Testimony
7) Inspector General (IG) Reports
8) High Risk Program Watchlists
9) FISMA Security Scorecards
10) Small Business Scorecards
11) GAO Procurement Reports
12) FPDS-NG Contract Transaction Reports (nearly 4 million per year!)
Many of the available reports and information sources describe explicitly how well key programs are fulfilling agency missions and serving taxpayers. They go well beyond simple bean counting and narrow assessments of how well the procurement process conforms to government regulations.
Paul Murphy
Eagle Eye Publishers Inc.
What do you think? Paste a comment in the box below (registration required), or send your comment to letters@fcw.com (subject line: Blog comment) and we'll post it.
Thanks in part to the government's growing commitment to procurement transparency and to reforms Steve himself was involved in during the late 1990s, the OMB and the agencies have begun making a host of valuable procurement performance measures available to the public. A partial list of these sources includes:
1) President's Management Agenda (PMA) Scorecards
2) Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) evaluations
2) Detailed A-300 Budget Justifications
3) Agency and Bureau Performance Reports
4) CPIC Status Reports
5) Congressional Budget Justifications
6) Congressional Testimony
7) Inspector General (IG) Reports
8) High Risk Program Watchlists
9) FISMA Security Scorecards
10) Small Business Scorecards
11) GAO Procurement Reports
12) FPDS-NG Contract Transaction Reports (nearly 4 million per year!)
Many of the available reports and information sources describe explicitly how well key programs are fulfilling agency missions and serving taxpayers. They go well beyond simple bean counting and narrow assessments of how well the procurement process conforms to government regulations.
Paul Murphy
Eagle Eye Publishers Inc.
What do you think? Paste a comment in the box below (registration required), or send your comment to letters@fcw.com (subject line: Blog comment) and we'll post it.
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