Acquisition Advisory Panel Shies Away From Changes in Socioeconomic Programs The chair of the federal Acquisition Advisory Panel said the group is not likely to propose changes in the government’s socioeconomic preferences, but several panel members questioned the policies that created the set-aside programs. “At the risk of being controversial, why don’t we talk about whether we need all the different preferences?” asked panel member David Drabkin, GSA’s senior procurement executive, at a Sept. 27 meeting in Washington. But the chair, Washington attorney Marcia Madsen, said that might be beyond the scope of the panel’s charter and indicated strongly that the panel’s recommendations will not touch the contentious issue. The panel was created by Congress in the Services Acquisition Reform Act of 2004 with a mandate to review all federal acquisition laws, regulations and policies. Its 14 members, appointed by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, are equally divided between government and the private sector. “We have heard a lot of talk about the difficulty of these competing preferences,” Madsen said. “These concerns are out there.” The panel has heard testimony from federal contracting officials and business representatives at a series of public meetings around the country. Drabkin and other career federal procurement officials have complained in the past that the smorgasbord of preferences and set-asides created by Congress overwhelms contracting officers. Much of the criticism revolves around what panel member Joshua Schwartz called “the hierarchy of preferences:” how to set priorities among 8(a), HUBZone, service-disabled veterans, women and other small businesses. “That’s a real hot potato,” said Schwartz, co-director of the Government Procurement Law Program at George Washington University Law School. SBA policy requires contracting officers to give equal priority to 8(a), HUBZone and service-disabled veteran-owned companies in setting aside contracts. SBA General Counsel David Javdan, who heads the advisory panel’s small business working group, said it will examine whether contracting officers receive “adequate guidance in selecting among the various preference programs.” “I certainly wouldn’t suggest eliminating all these preferences,” Javdan said, adding that such a proposal would not go anywhere. He said the group will also consider the appropriateness of cascading set-asides, where contracting officers first consider, for example, 8(a) companies, and only consider proposals from other businesses if no 8(a) firm meets the requirement. He enumerated other issues the working group will consider: *Contract “unbundling;” *The practice of reserving some awards in multiple-award contracts for small businesses, but requiring them to compete with large businesses for task orders; *Competition on inter-agency contract vehicles such as GSA schedules; *Large prime contractors’ compliance with subcontracting plans and issues of prompt payment of subcontractors. GSA’s Drabkin argued that the current policy of setting small business goals only for prime contracts is obsolete. “Focusing on prime contract dollars in this day and age is not the best way to get the dollars to small businesses,” he said. Some other federal procurement officials have also proposed counting subcontracts toward agencies’ small business goals, because so many prime contracts have grown too big for small firms to compete. The Acquisition Advisory Panel plans to publish the first draft of portions of its report by Oct. 15 on its website, www.acqnet.gov/aap. It will vote on recommendations later and is scheduled to submit its final report to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in February.