On January 17th the Coalition for Common Sense in Government Procurement (the Coalition) launched the Government Procurement Efficiency List (GPEL) seeking recommendations from our members and stakeholders across the procurement community on opportunities to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the federal procurement system. Here is an update on the GPEL.
The Coalition has received over 65 recommendations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the procurement system, and the recommendations keep coming. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to respond to the GPEL request. A consistent theme cuts across the recommendations – the government must reduce contract clauses, processes, and procedures where the costs outweigh the benefits. Government unique terms are barriers to entry for commercial firms, limiting competition, innovation, and value. Ultimately, these barriers undermine/diminish the “contracting return on investment” for federal agencies seeking best value mission support for the American people.
The Coalition has reviewed the recommendations and organized them by topic/subject matter. Moving forward, the FAR & Beyond blog will periodically highlight specific efficiency opportunities or common sets of opportunities from the GPEL. This week the focus is on the GPEL’s recommendations for the General Services Administration’s (GSA’s) Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) program. The chart discussing the 14 MAS efficiency opportunities can be found here.
As noted in last week’s blog, GSA is rightsizing the MAS program to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the program in delivering best value mission support to customer agencies. The 14 GPEL recommendations outlined in the chart, including our white paper identifying unnecessary FAR and DFARS clauses applied to commercial items, are in direct support of GSA’s efficiency efforts for the MAS program. The recommendations will reduce barriers to entry, streamline time-consuming and burdensome processes, and eliminate outdated, anticompetitive contractual requirements that raise prices and reduce competition. Finally, the chart includes recommendations to adapt the MAS program’s statutory authority to embrace best value and further enhance t competition at the task order level for service requirements. These recommendations reflect a pro-competition, pro-innovation approach to the MAS program that would enhance the delivery of best value solutions to meet customer agency needs for the American people.
Thank you to all those who have submitted recommendations. We look forward to sharing further recommendations in future blogs. Please do not hesitate to reach out with any additional recommendations you may have, with respect to the MAS or the procurement system in general. To submit GPEL recommendations, email Greg Waldron at gwaldron@thecgp.org.