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United States : OFPP - FG's procurement system not designed for optimal performance
Publish Date : 01-Apr-2015
The Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP)'s administrator, Anne Rung, says that the procurement system of the federal government has not been developed for optimal performance.
But while making the understatement Rung, who said this at the quarterly President's Management Advisory Board meeting in Washington Friday, did not only complain about the situation that has resulted in over 3,300 contracting offices around the world, massive price discrepancies among agencies when purchasing similar goods and services, and major duplication across the government.
She said, "I think a lot of well-intentioned acquisition reform legislation has had some unintended consequences. At one point, in [the Clinton administration's] Reinventing Government, they called for an end to government monopolies and they were talking about different functional areas. But one of the areas they were referring to was the General Services Administration being the sole entity to purchase IT acquisitions. So, they wanted to bring that authority back to the agencies. One of the unintended consequences was that we have this massive proliferation of duplicative contracts across government. So, we now have this model that we have to do something with."
Rung's view slightly opens the door on the Obama government's thinking about what drives category management. Few have doubts that the government could boost efficiency. Few would say that the government wouldn't benefit from programs like strategic sourcing or spend management. The question that still arises is the way to address the industrial base that has expanded under this flawed and broken model.
According to OFPP, category management would help in controlling about $270 billion across 10 super categories&, which are the basis for the category management program. Rung said, "No one has tried it on this scaled. In the U.K., they are talking about $14 billion in spend. Boeing and other companies like Macy's are much smaller."
She asked "So how do you really tackle $270 billion in common spend How do you bring some organization and transparency into this space " OMB's deputy director for management, Beth Cobert, said the information around these 10 super-categories is the key to change the agency's purchasing behavior.
