White House officials are temporarily expanding the scope of the 10-month-old Quick Pay program for contractors, with an eye on making prompt payments a selection factor in future bids.

The Office of Management and Budget in a July 11 memo directed agencies to press prime contractors to accelerate payments to their subcontractors.

The agencies are to speed payments to primes for a year, to facilitate the quicker payments to small business subs.

President Obama debuted the QuickPay program in September 2011. Agencies were told to cut payment time to small firms to 15 days, from 30.

Under the new memo, agencies must encourage their prime contractors to include quick-pay provisions in current and future contracts.

White House officials also want the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council to develop prompt-pay language that can be added to future contracts.

In the near future, whether a prime contractor pays its subcontractors quickly will be considered a factor in competitions for contracts, Jeffrey Zients, acting OMB director, told reporters, according to Federal News Radio.

Meanwhile, OMB said the new policy is temporary and transitional.

It could have a strong impact on subs, but enforcement is unclear, Guy Timberlake, co-founder of the American Small Business Coalition, wrote in a blog post.

“Sounds to me like someone has not put thought into how this will be monitored and this will be figured out as it goes along,” Timberlake wrote.

Moreinformation:whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2012/m-12-16.pdf