Report recommends better management of contracting technical staff

Agencies can meet their regulatory requirements and leverage a stretched acquisition workforce by better managing the technical experts on their contracting teams, the Merit Systems Protection Board said in a recent report.

In the report released last week, MSPB reviewed the management of contracting officer representatives -- the members of contracting teams with expertise on the technical, rather than business, side of an acquisition -- and found significant gaps that hurt contract outcomes. MSPB is a quasi-judicial federal agency charged with upholding the merit principles.

"In recent years, the government has modernized its contracting rules and procedures and improved the management of contracting officers who carry out the business aspects of contracting," wrote MSPB Director Steve Nelson, in a letter presenting the report. "However, almost no work has been done to assess agencies' management of contracting officer representatives who provide the technical expertise necessary to effectively develop and oversee contracts."

Such management is particularly important as federal contract spending has increased over the past several years, the report noted. The government spent $328 billion on contracts in 2004, an 87 percent increase over the $175 billion spent in 1997.

MSPB focused on two types of management: issues pertaining to basic regulatory requirements, and additional good practices in managing contracting technical experts.

To comply with contracting and personnel rules, agencies should ensure that contracting officers, the single individual with ultimate responsibility for the business side of a contract, formally delegate work to contracting officer representatives as required in the Federal Acquisition Regulation, the report recommended.

In their survey of technical contracting staff at the 10 agencies that spent 90 percent of the government's fiscal 2000 acquisition dollars, reviewers found a link between formal delegation of responsibility and better contract outcomes.

Reviewers also recommended that technical contract staff receive training on both the business of contracting and their technical specialty on an ongoing basis. The technical experts, who were generally highly trained, highly paid employees, reported that computer-based and self-paced training was least effective, while training that entailed interaction with other experienced personnel was most useful.

Additionally, reviewers found that agencies were not meeting Office of Management and Budget policies geared at strategic workforce management that call for agencies to track the locations and competencies of their contracting officer representatives.

Allan Burman, head of federal procurement policy at OMB under George H.W. Bush, said the study would be valuable to the procurement community. "The more that [contracting officer representatives] are recognized as people with a strategic role, and an important role, the better," he said, noting that some of MSPB's recommendations for increased training and earlier involvement for these professionals were similar to those made in March by a federal acquisition advisory group.

Beyond the basic requirements, reviewers found many areas where good management practices were linked with good contract outcomes. The report urged agencies to consider the following measures, which were found to be linked to better results:

• Establish and use criteria for assigning contracting officer representatives (CORs).
• Involve CORs early in the contracting process.
• Ensure that pre- and post-award contract duties are performed by CORs.
• Work with CORs to balance time requirements with noncontracting responsibilities.
• Rate CORs on their contracting performance.
• Strengthen other elements of the contracting team.