New Efforts to Increase Small Business Contracting Federal agencies will conduct small business outreach sessions in major cities as part of the Obama administration’s effort to increase contract opportunities for small firms. A new interagency small business procurement group, coordinated out of the White House, is spearheading the effort. It will “meet regularly with senior agency leadership and discuss the steps agencies are taking to increase small business contracting,” according to a Feb. 11 memo from the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. Leaders of the group are OFPP administrator Dan Gordon, SBA administrator Karen Mills and David Hinson, director of the Commerce Department’s Minority Business Development Agency. The government’s persistent failure to meet most small business goals has cost those firms an estimated $6 billion in federal contracting opportunities. “This underachievement deprives our taxpayers of the creativity, innovation and technical expertise that small businesses provide to agencies as federal contractors and takes away opportunities for small businesses to create jobs and drive the economy forward,” the memo says. The interagency group directed all agencies to hold at least two outreach sessions in major cities this year, including business-to-business matchmaking sessions. A senior official (undersecretary or above) will participate in each meeting. Instructions for planning the sessions take on a political cast. The White House Office of Public Engagement will help set them up, and agencies are instructed to give mayors and local members of Congress an opportunity to speak. The interagency group directed other specific steps to promote opportunities for small contractors: •“The group intends to review the progress of all agencies in achieving their small business contracting goals.” The memo said. Initial participants in the group are the seven agencies that are the biggest spenders: the departments of Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs; GSA; and NASA. Officials of OFPP will hold biweekly calls or meetings with other agencies to monitor their progress in increasing spending with small businesses. •Agencies should take “concerted steps” to increase small business awards through GSA schedules, such as by using socioeconomic status as a primary evaluation factor in awarding orders. •When deciding whether to insource work, “agencies generally should place a lower priority on reviewing work performed by small businesses.” •Agencies should communicate to their workforce the importance of meeting socioeconomic goals and remind them of President Obama’s 2010 directive that “small business contracting should always be a high priority in the procurement process.” •SBA and OFPP will sponsor a small business contracting event at the Executive Office of the President this spring, where agency small business directors, OSDBUs, chief acquisition officers and senior procurement executives will be asked to present best practices and success stories for achieving greater small business participation and strategies for effective collaboration between agency small business and acquisition offices. The new actions follow up on recommendations by the Interagency Task Force on Federal Contracting Opportunities for Small Businesses, which was created by presidential order last April.