The Office of Management and Budget will release three policy memos today that promise to reform how government uses contractors.
One memo directs agencies on how to manage the multi-sector workforce. This memo states that agencies don’t have a handle on how contractor employees are used in their offices. It orders agencies to:
- Coordinate their program, human capital, acquisition and finance offices to strategically plan for outsourcing.
- Conduct a pilot program to test multi-sector workforce management plans
- Develop guidelines to insource inherently governmental functions, work that closely supports those functions and work that could be more cheaply performed by federal employees.
A second memo orders agencies to review existing contracts and acquisition practices to “develop a plan that will save 7 percent of baseline contract spending by the end of FY 2011” and to “reduce by 10 percent the share of dollars obligated in FY 2010 under new contract actions that are awarded with high-risk contracting authorities,” such as cost-reimbursement contracts. The hope is to save $40 billion governmentwide.
The final memo outlines new a Federal Acquisition Regulation to capture and share more past performance information about government contractors.
OMB is holding a news conference on the new guidance shortly. We’ll have more details for you later on today at FederalTimes.com.
