Lesley Field

OFPP to issue memo to make sure agencies understand new ethics rules

New OFPP report tells how many agencies are taking advantage of four-year-old tool to improve their procurement workforce.

How much do the federal civil service and the public trust in their government? That will be the topic of a luncheon presentation at tomorrow’s “Strengthening Trust In Government” conference. We get a preview from…

OFPP is holding these meetings with large agencies to understand how they are meeting the Obama administration’s acquisition goals. The sessions are similar to the TechStat sessions, but they’re not at the program level. OFPP also is finalizing rules around multiple award contracts and schedule bidding.

The administration will issued the Mythbusters 2 memo today. The document takes aim at commonly held misconceptions by vendors. It follows the initial Mythbusters memo issued in February 2011 focusing on agency-held fallacies.

Agencies must meet annual goals between 2013 and 2015 to enter data into the Past Performance Information Retrieval System. Joe Jordan, the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, said inputting and referring to vendor performance information can reduce risks for agencies.

New data from Govini, a market research firm, finds the number of lowest price, technically acceptable awards doubled from 2009 to 2013. Vendors also are seeing more and more agencies issue solicitations where price is the only or a major evaluation criterion. DoD, civilian agency official acquisition officials say LPTA is one tool in a large toolbox.

Joe Jordan will become the president of the public sector at FedBid. He’s leaving OFPP after 18 months.

GSA, NASA and NIH are providing agency customers more insight into what they are buying, how they are buying it and what prices they are paying. OFPP plans to launch the Prices Paid Portal later this year. But others say it’s not about the data, but the outcomes agencies are trying to achieve.

In this week’s Inside the Reporter’s Notebook, Executive Editor Jason Miller explores how DoD is developing its cloud security standards and Treasury is filling a financial management void.