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The General Services Administration has taken over the acquisition portion of an effort to consolidate human resources systems across government.

The HR consolidation is part of a broader Bush administration effort to make agencies move to shared back-end information technology systems in several areas. GSA's new role, established in a memorandum of understanding signed Dec. 19, marks a major shift in how the administration is implementing the effort.

Office of Personnel Management spokesman Peter Graves said OPM is still the managing partner for the HR project and is responsible for setting the requirements for shared service providers. The private sector providers GSA will select would supplement the five government agencies that currently serve as shared providers.

One government official familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the move will allow OPM to focus on setting up the contents of the program rather than the acquisition element.

Starting next week, GSA officials will "work out the nuts and bolts of the acquisition strategy with OPM," a GSA spokesman said.

The HR line of business will have its own special item number exclusively for vendors making offers to become commercial shared service providers, according to GSA. It will fall under the multiple award schedule 738-Part 10, known as Human Resources and Equal Employment Opportunity Services, which is managed out of GSA's Region 2 in New York City.

Originally, OPM officials said they would release a request for proposals for prospective private sector providers sometime in 2006 and make awards by the end of the year. But that never materialized.

According to a GSA spokesman, a notice will be published on FedBizOpps on Jan. 20 containing more information about the contracting process. On Jan. 30, a draft statement of objectives, along with the pre-certification requirements, will be published.

A question and answer session for prospective bidders is scheduled for Feb. 14, and on March 1, responses to questions that come up in that session will be published on FedBizOpps.

Offers will be due on April 15; GSA will finish evaluating them on June 30.

The GSA spokesman said the agency may consider moving to a similar acquisition strategy for the financial management line of business, but cannot discuss the details since the Office of Management and Budget is still completing a review.

Several officials within the government and private sector said GSA's handling of contracts to help agencies implement a presidential ID card directive, and the general perception that the agency often falls behind the technology curve, could make private sector companies hesitant to sign up as HR providers.

But a GSA spokesman said the HR lines of business acquisition strategy is "quite different" from that for the ID card contracts and represents a new type of acquisition.

"Overall, this is great news for contractors," said Amy Laderberg O'Sullivan, counsel in the government contracts practice group at Crowell & Moring, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm. "If the [HR consolidation] is switched away from the awkward and continually evolving model contemplated by OPM to a schedule-based acquisition, contractors will benefit from more opportunity for competition and can participate in an acquisition environment in which they are already comfortable."

Norm Lorentz, a former OMB chief technology officer, said the model looks promising but time will tell if it is successful. "The devil is in the details," he said. "GSA should be the procurer of choice."

John Marshall, vice president at Fairfax, Va.-based CGI Federal, an IT services company that is heavily involved in the financial management line of business as a commercial shared service provider, said the move establishes a procurement infrastructure that will allow the program to move forward.

COMMENTS

• Having worked with both OPM and GSA on several projects, I must say that this is the worst possible partnership imaginable. Both agencies are long on ideas but short on execution or even the capability to understand what it takes to implement an idea. Beyond coming up with "things" other agencies should do in order to be able to tell Congress or the president all the glorious "things" being done to improve whatever is perceived to be bad, there is little value added by either organization. OPM dictates, regardless of cost or ability to actually execute and as an organization is unable to correctly assess whether an idea is good or just sounds good. GSA is just their lap dog that valiantly tries to come with a method of executing and they invariably fail. If OPM really wants to improve the personnel system, talk to the agency that manages military records. Those records are never lost -- if it happened, heads would roll. Military careers are actually managed and accurate records are kept. But no, OPM/GSA will spend billions and what do you want to bet, in a few years, yet another project will go belly up with nothing accomplished except to bilk the taxpayer. Skeptical Posted January 6, 2007 2:07 PM