Who's Who in Acquisition?

re you in or out? No, I'm not talking about closets, sports pools or poker. I'm talking about the acquisition workforce.

What's the acquisition workforce, you ask? Most people think of these employees as the shoppers and buyers whose charge is to get agencies what they need to do their work. In government parlance, they are "1102s" or contracting officers (COs). From the private-sector perspective, they are the ones who plaster government solicitations with those onerous "reps" and "certs" that mirror the fine print on the back of your rental car agreement. As of September 1997, there were about 28,000 COs across government, down from 31,000 in 1991, a drop of 10 percent. Almost three-quarters of them work at the Defense Department.

For years the Office of Personnel Management classified contracting officers as a lower, administrative job series. If you look at educational statistics, even today only slightly more than half have a bachelor's or higher degree. But in the late 1980s, COs were redesignated as professionals, giving due recognition to their key role in obtaining private-sector services. With executive branch employment at its lowest level since the Kennedy era, and no concomitant reduction in agency programs or responsibilities, that role becomes even more important. However, while 1102s may be the fulcrum of the acquisition workforce, essential to closing the deal, by no means do they carry this responsibility alone.

Improving Proficiency

A challenge for all government agencies is to ensure that their contracting officers have the proper skills and training to operate in today's fast-changing contracting environment. A less-recognized need is to identify other employees who contribute to the acquisition process and ensure their proficiency as well.

Steve Carberry is carrying out this role at the Housing and Urban Development Department as Secretary Andrew Cuomo's chief procurement officer. One main goal of HUD's management reform plan is to improve the agency's acquisition processes and training. However, HUD is also focusing on program officials who manage and review contractor activities. For the HUD reforms to work, contracting and program officials need to appreciate their shared responsibilities and need training to help them operate in a team-oriented environment.

Congressional challenges have forced the Defense Department to launch a similar review. DoD perhaps more than any other agency has been pressured to better define its workforce and justify its staffing. The last few Defense authorization bills have made sizable cuts in DoD's acquisition workforce, and the fiscal 1999 proposal includes a reduction of 25,000 people.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House National Security Committee procurement subcommittee, has complained that Defense is overloaded with shoppers and buyers. In his view, funds for these positions could be much better used for other purposes. Duncan says sharp cutbacks force the department to develop innovative ways to carry out their programs.

The criticisms have been compounded by the fact that DoD has used various approaches to define its acquisition workforce. For example, one approach added up all employees in acquisition organizations such as the Army and Air Force materiel commands and the Navy Systems commands. Totaling these employees results in an acquisition workforce 366,000 strong--a far cry from the 20,000 DoD contracting officers.

To develop a consistent definition, DoD looked back to the 1980s work of former Deputy Defense Secretary David Packard's Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management. Rather than defining the workforce solely by organization or training, Packard used a combination of occupations and organizations. The logic was that certain people such as 1102s should be included in the acquisition workforce, regardless of where they worked in the agency. Others, such as engineers or budget specialists, would be included only if they served in organizations with an acquisition focus.

Packard's model has two key advantages. It uses occupations to define more precisely the work of acquisition professionals, showing that many more people than just shoppers and buyers are central to this process. It also reveals the inadequacies of defining the workforce as anyone in acquisition organizations. For example, of the 366,000 people in acquisition organizations, 85,000 perform depot repair work; 54,000 are enlisted personnel or wage board employees such as electricians and plumbers; 46,000 are secretaries and supply clerks or security police, firefighters and the like; and 10,000 are chaplains, nurses, public affairs professionals and others. Once these positions are deleted, the acquisition workforce becomes only half the size of DoD's estimate of 366,000.

The Logistics Management Institute, a federally funded research and development center, and the Procurement Roundtable, a nonprofit group of senior government officials experienced in acquisition, are working with Defense and civilian agencies to find out if the workforce definitions can be standardized to serve as a sound basis for management planning. "Once you identify who's in the workforce, then you can focus on making sure that they have the training and education necessary to make good business decisions," says Bill Tuttle, president of the Logistics Management Institute.

Allan V. Burman, a former Office of Federal Procurement Policy administrator, is president of Jefferson Solutions in Washington.