OFPP wants agencies tracking details on service contracts
Officials want to have a way to check on the contractor-to-federal employee ratio.
Starting in March, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy wants contracting officers to report in the Federal Procurement Data System whether each new service contract awarded in fiscal 2012 is predominately providing jobs that are closely associated with an inherently governmental function or a critical function.
According to an OFPP memo dated Dec. 19, officials want the information to help agencies prioritize which contracts may need increased management attention to keep contractors away from inherently governmental functions while the agency maintains control of operations.
In 2009 Congress required inventories, because lawmakers said agencies are ill-equipped to determine if they have the right balance of contractor and in-house resources.
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Agencies also need to send OFPP their draft reports on the service contracts in fiscal 2010 and 2011. Officials have to send in the reports by Dec. 30, and make the information publicly available on the agency web site by Jan. 30,
The reports for fiscal 2010 must include:
- The special interest functions the agency studied, the dollars obligated to those specific product and service codes (PSCs) in fiscal 2010 and why they studied those jobs.
- How the agency analyzed its functions, such as the sampled contract files and employee interviews.
- A brief discussion on how they are meeting their goals, such as not using contractor employees to preform critical functions in a way that could affect the ability of the agency to keep control of its operations.
- How they plan to address weaknesses.
In the fiscal 2011 inventory, agencies won’t collect the number of federal employees, the amount invoiced and the role services play in meeting the agency's mission. This information is not currently collected in the Federal Procurement Data System.
For the analysis of the fiscal 2011 inventory, agencies need to identify which special interest functions and specify which PSCs that the agency will analyze and the associated agency-funded obligations for them. They also need to provide brief explanation on why officials chose to analyze those functions.
The draft analysis is due in December of 2012.