The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is continuing its drive to further mandate the use of government strategic sourcing contracts with the establishment of the Strategic Sourcing Leadership Council (SSLC).
In a memo, acting OMB Director Jeff Zients established the Strategic Sourcing Leadership Council (SSLC), which will “lead the government’s efforts to increase the use of government-wide management and sourcing of goods and services.”
“While every agency must eliminate inefficiencies from its acquisition processes, this initiative puts additional responsibilities for designing and implementing government-wide strategic sourcing solutions on large agencies, which make up the vast majority of all Federal contracting,” Zients wrote in the memo. The SSLC will consist of representatives from the Departments of Defense (DOD), Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, the General Services Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and other agencies as designated by the administrator.
The SSLC is required to submit to OMB recommendations for management strategies for specific goods and services – including several IT commodities – that would ensure that the Federal government receives the most favorable offer possible, by March 2013. The memo also mandates that the CFO at the 24 CFO Act agencies designate strategic sourcing accountable officials to coordinate the agency’s internal strategic sourcing activity.
The Professional Services Council approved of the move, saying it is the first time the federal government is doing what the PSC has long recommended: “sort out their own buying habits first before pushing or pulling them into a government-wide initiative,” said Alan Chvotkin, PSC’s executive vice president and counsel, in a release.
“We applaud OMB for recognizing that multi-component agencies and departments, like the Defense Department and the Homeland Security Department, face huge strategic sourcing challenges across their own enterprises, let alone across the government,” Chvotkin said. “We believe the ‘Strategic Sourcing Accountable Officials’ each agency must designate will improve the coordination of internal strategic sourcing activities and the participation in government-wide efforts, generating additional savings.”
These new efforts come on the heels of recent figures released by the OMB say federal contract spending was reduced by more than $20 billion during Fiscal 2012, which is the largest contract spending decrease on record.
