Competitive Sourcing Timetable May Be Relaxed in Final Rule In the face of a chorus of complaints from federal agencies, the Office of Management and Budget is softening its proposed 12-month deadline for completing most outsourcing competitions. “Either it was a failure in drafting on our part, or people didn’t read it,” Angela Styles, administrator of federal procurement policy, told the Washington Post in its Jan. 29 edition. OMB’s proposed revision to Circular A-76 specified that a “standard competition” should be completed within 12 months from the time it is announced. But the revision provides for agencies to take longer than that if they determine in advance that a particular competition is unusually complicated. “It’s up to the agencies’ discretion, as long as they notify us,” Styles said. In its 2004 budget, the Defense Department said it plans to compete 226,000 positions, one-half of its inventory of commercial jobs, over the next five years. “The Department is attempting to open up for competition many of the commercial services it now performs itself, such as health care activities to free up thousands of military positions for war-fighting,” the budget document says.  DOD has conducted far more job competitions than any other agency. OMB has told agencies to hold outsourcing competitions on 15% of their commercial jobs by the end of the current fiscal year, but added that is not a hard-and-fast quota. The Senate voted down an amendment to prohibit the use of numerical targets when it passed the 2003 Omnibus Appropriations bill Jan. 23. The bill is now before a House-Senate conference committee. At a budget briefing Jan. 30, Styles estimated that 7% to 10% of commercial jobs are somewhere in the pipeline toward sourcing competitions. Dave Childs, the OMB procurement policy analyst who is the point man on competitive sourcing, told a conference of contracting officers in November that agencies could extend the 12-month timetable in advance of a competition, but would not be allowed to extend the deadline once a competition is under way without special permission from OMB. (SAA 11/29/02) “We’re going to be encouraging agencies to do it quicker,” Styles told the Post. “It’s better for people in the private sector that are investing their money, and it’s better for (federal) employees who are facing the unknown.” The 12-month deadline was a lightning rod for criticism in agencies’ comments on the proposed rule, with several calling it unrealistic and arbitrary. (SAA, 1/24) Speeding up competitive sourcing competitions was a prime goal of the new rules. OMB said competitions under current rules frequently take from two to four years. OMB officials have said they hope to issue the final rule by the end of this month. The new chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), said he plans hearings on the proposed revision. Without endorsing the 12-month timetable, Davis told Set-Aside Alert, “You have to make it a realistic time frame, otherwise (agencies will) delay it, delay it.”