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Return to Article: Agencies struggle to meet goals on opening work to contractors

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  Dan, Your statement that activities have been shown to be over staffed and over compensated doesn't reflect my experience. Without exception, activities at our site that have been out-sourced have resulted in lower levels of service. By the way, the group I am in saves the government millions of dollars a year (over contracting out). Our engineers are priced at 1/3 of private industry and we easily compare favorably with the best software engineering houses in the world. This is not unique, I belonged to another group early in my career that won award of work that was being performed by a contracto for the same reason.

  A76s go in with ASSUMPTION that the activity is over-staffed and over-costed. The government activities that I have seen that have been put up for out-sourcing have been instructed on what compensation level and staffing to quote (invariably lower, leading to the illusion of universal over-pricing). I am aware of no real analysis of the tasks to determine what is REQUIRED to accomplish the task.

  bill Posted August 2, 2007 11:12 AM
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  This whole idea of a quarterly scorecard is really pathetic. Dr. W. Edwards Deming (the man almost solely responsible for pulling Japan out of its economic crisis) has repeatedly said, "Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Sustitute leadership." ("Out of the Crisis, MIT Press, 2000, p. 24). When numerical goals (almost entirely arbitrary in nature) are substituted for leadership, bad decisions are made. Really bad decisions for the wrong reasons. It's like a saleseman meeting an arbitrary quota who will make bad sales to meet the quota, resulting in dissatisfied consumers. The purpose may be improvement, but the result may be (and usually is) completely couterproductive.

  Under the A-76 Gun Posted July 31, 2007 12:47 PM
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  A-76 competation has been going on for 20 maybe longer. What it has always shown is that the activies are overstaffed and overcompensateed. The resulting MEO is reflects a work force at a minimum 20% lighter. As a taxpayer we need the best bang for the buck and thrifting unneeded workers

  dan ketter Posted July 31, 2007 12:44 PM
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  I know our IT department went through an A76. The Government originally won, but the contractor protested and was allowed to re-submit their new and reduced bid. The government was not allowed to review and re-submit a bid. We have since had several different contractors handling our IT, and the service level has been terrible. It is a new group and learning curve for them every couple years. Very disappointing.

  Glen Posted July 31, 2007 12:36 PM
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  Yes of course Harold- But only if you were running your business to grow and be prosperous and longlasting. If you were a business owner who didn't care about the business and was actually trying to wipe it out for a tax write-off you would outsource everything and bleed resources.

  This administration borrows as much as possible, outsources as much work as possible, and is revenue adverse. It is the poster child for the worst type of business practices.

  HR Specialist Posted July 31, 2007 11:15 AM
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  If you are running your own business, would you competitively outsource your important work? Would you want to spend the time and resources to competitively outsources this work every couple of years, thus using more time and resources? Would you want to hire additional personnel to monitor the outsourcing productivity and the awarding of bonuses? Does competitive outsourcing really pass the common sense test? Instead, for your important work requirements, wouldn't you want to have long term employees that you have hired, trained, and groomed for this work, employees who are loyal and experienced?

  Harold Henderson Posted July 31, 2007 9:50 AM
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  This article should have pointed out that the comments of OMB personnel on contracting out should be taken in the context of OMB's own red rating on this measure. It would also have been helpful to note that OMB is rated red on financial management, despite its budget responsibilities.

  David Richardson Posted July 31, 2007 9:44 AM
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  So much mis-information and subterfuge on this topic. Last I saw, the gov wins around 80% - how does that say the rules are biased in the contractor's favor?

  We lost our jobs because we were stupid. We wrote crappy requirements and then bid what we really do. A contractor won and couldn't do the real work required so they got a contract mod to bring it up to what it should have been in the first place. We'd have won if the statement of work matched what is really done, but we tried to play games with the workloads.

  Don't let it happen to you - if you get picked for an A-76 competition, the only right answer is the truth. That's way to best improve your odds of retaining your jobs and not having to get picked up by a contractor to do the same thing at less benefits.

  A-76's in the south Posted July 31, 2007 8:30 AM
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  Opening work to contractors when schedules and work load may dedicate it but to mandate contractors levels just doesn't seem like good business sense especially in this time of work and fighting terroism

  steve austin Posted July 31, 2007 8:13 AM
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  About time that this program fell apart. I'm really not upset that Departments are getting red failing grades in their attempts to outsource federal jobs to the private sector. To OMB I will simply say- tough luck on destroying the civil service.

  HR Specialist Posted July 31, 2007 6:49 AM
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  The problem is that the administration's grand outsourcing scheme is flawed from conception. It's clear to EVERYONE except those who believe they can fool all of the people all of the time. Case in point - and I quote the article: "OMB released a sheet seeking to counter what it called "myths" about the initiative, including the belief that it is 'a scheme to get rid of federal employees' and that it 'doesn't save any money.'" OMB seems to be the only one who doesn't see that the emperor of competitive sourcing is wearing no clothes. Even with the rules stacked againt them, the federal employees are beating the contractor bids over 80% of the competitions. Stop wasting tax-payer dollars with this "farce of a process" and concentrate on building strong federal staff - use contractors ONLY when federal staff cannot do all the work. In case no one has noticed, there is PLENTY of work to go around. The best consultants and federal contractors KNOW this. The feeding frenzy at tax-payers expense and at the expense for critical missions must end.

  Don Posted July 30, 2007 10:38 PM