Hodgepodge Reform?
Here's a nice story nicely done by the inimitable Mike Allen of Politico.
The gist: Barack Obama's presidential campaign is offering a variety of contracting reforms in the hope they will give the government a stronger hand. The reality: It's not clear the proposals will succeed in changing the fundamental problems of the federal government's ailing procurement system.
"The presidential candidates have gotten in a bidding war over promises to trim federal fat, with both using the issue to try to portray themselves as the one to shake up Washington at a time when voters are disgusted with government," Allen writes.
The proposals include requiring agencies to defense non-competitive contracts. Technically, they're already required to justify less than full and open competition.
He would protect whistleblowers. Under the law, they're already technically well protected. The problem is that bureaucrats and political appointees hammer whistleblowers. When complaints mature into IG investigations or other oversight, the agencies and their contracting partners often complain about how auditors are a drag on the efficiency of their operations. Examinations of the process show that whistleblowers who have been punished for speaking out rarely win their appeals.
Then there's this line:
"Meeting 21st Century challenges will require a government that leverages 21st Century technologies and keeps up with the private sector. Obama will appoint the nation's first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century. The CTO will work with each of the federal agencies, to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices. Like he has in the campaign, Obama will employ innovative technologies, including blogs, wikis, social networking tools and other new strategies, to modernize internal, cross-agency, and public communication and information sharing."
Government Inc. and anyone who has followed the rise in technology spending over the last decade has heard this kind of thing before. One question that will inevitably arise -- here it is, arising -- is this:
What exactly can one CTO do in a procurement environment where there are too few people doing too little oversight to ensure that all that money is doing to the right place?
Taxpayers have been hearing this one for more than a decade, as agencies spent many billions on bloated contracts for computer systems that often don't work. By the way, the agencies' private sector partners have rarely been held to account for the inflated costs and poor execution on prior plans to help the government meet "21st Century challenges."
Like all good Americans, we at Government Inc. hope that whoever wins the White House can help guide the federal government to a more efficient future that keeps the interests of taxpayers truly in mind.
By Robert O'Harrow |
September 25, 2008; 5:23 PM ET
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Posted by: joyce kwartler | September 26, 2008 10:52 AM
Does anyone remember the Brooks Act under which GSA was the Government's ADP Czar and what a fiasco that was? Are we possibly heading for a return to that system or something akin to it?
Posted by: novahorn | September 26, 2008 2:13 PM
Why is it that folks that have a cure for all that ills the government systems want to insert yet another level of red tape into the process. The aquistion/procurement system and exisiting goverenance is already pretty well established, the problem is accountability and oversight, not another layer of red tape. You want to fix the process, lessen the hoops to jump through and hold contractors accountable for programs that do not deliver what they were contracted to deliver. As far as "cutting edge" technologies, when the government decided to go COTS we lost the egde in driving the market, therfore we will always be a user and not a driver. Most of what the candidates espouse already exists in the government, getting everyone to use the same tools and making the networks work together is the difficult task. SANDBOXES must be connected together. Good luck on that!
Posted by: Wayne Brindley | September 27, 2008 10:32 AM
Here's my three point procurement reform:
(1) Hire way more procurement officers
(2) Train them
(3) Compensate them enough so that they don't leave for the private sector the moment #2 occurs.
The rest is noise.
Posted by: DCLawyer | October 2, 2008 3:11 PM
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When will the gpo offset be overturned along with pretax dollars for medical for federal retirees