Procurement Reform: Opportunities for Change

GAO discussed reforming the government's acquisition system. GAO noted that: (1) federal officials view the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act (FASA) as a continuation and not a culmination of acquisition reform efforts; (2) the Department of Defense and other agencies have a number of proposals and initiatives to improve their procurement procedures; (3) in general, the proposals seek to allow industry to offer and government to acquire maximum value for the taxpayer; (4) reforms to simplify the acquisition process include buying commercial products, simplifying acquisition thresholds (SAT) for waivers of government-specific requirements, implementing the Federal Acquisition Computer Network (FACNET) as soon as possible, building longer-term relationships with well-performing contractors, and easing domestic-source restrictions; (5) reforms to ensure selection of the best contractor include limiting the number of competitive range contractors to the top three firms and streamlining the Small Business Administration's 8(a) and certificate of competency programs; and (6) reforms to reduce bid protests include limiting or combining protest forums, expanding preaward debriefings for noncompetitive range bidders, implementing a single statutory standard by which to decide all protest cases, revising cost principles to exclude protest costs under cost contracts, and exempting FACNET acquisitions from the formal protest process.