Government Contracting Blog

Federal agencies are getting more comfortable as they transition to a mobile landscape. As this transition progresses discussions have become more focused on securing actual data rather than securing devices as the concept of Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) fits into the architecture.

West Cheshire College, a leading vocational college in the northwest part of England, is the first college to implement a real time location tracking solution. This technology will enable West Cheshire to precisely track, analyze and manage student movements around the buildings’ free flowing public and learning zones. The variety of data being received via real time reporting will allow the college to see which students are in class at any given time. The college can act on this data based on student movement patterns within the building to efficiently allocate resources and optimize staff and resourcing capacity.

FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) is led by GSA and is a soon-to-be mandatory government wide program that standardizes the government’s approach to authorizing cloud services for use by federal agencies and monitoring those services to ensure that they continue to meet federal cybersecurity requirements.Once a service goes through the initial FedRAMP authorization process, it will get a stamp of approval that all agencies can use to sign off on the service’s ability to meet federal security requirements. FedRAMP is still in pre-launch stage. The launch of its initial operational capabilities is scheduled for June 2012, and the focus will be on infrastructure as a service and e-mail as service. Full operational capabilities are scheduled for the second quarter of fiscal 2013. At this stage, FedRamp will include more diverse products and services. By 2014 the government will move to full implementation with on-demand scalability and all federal agencies will be required to use the FedRAMP process for assessments.

Supporting the world’s desire to create a cleaner environment, President Obama recently ordered agencies to limit their fuel use. He outlined this objective by demanding agencies to buy more alternative-fuel vehicles and in some cases even decrease the size of their fleets. Obama issued the memo recently when GSA announced plans to spend $4.3 million to purchase 116 electric vehicles. GSA will rent the cars —precisely 101 Chevrolet Volts, 10 Nissan Leafs and 5 Think City EVs — to 20 federal agencies in 5 cities across the country. They have even outlined plans to have charging stations for powering those cars in Washington, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Detroit—the cities were those 20 federal agencies are located. The only exemption of this rule includes law enforcement vehicles. But to further support the objective, the memo directs GSA to work with agencies to help issue guidance for alternative fuel vehicles for law enforcement. Looking to the future, Obama even ordered all fleet purchases starting in 2015 to be alternative-fuel vehicles.

As of February 4, 2011, Women-Owned Small Businesses (WOSB) can begin taking steps toward participating in a new federal contracting program that is aimed at expanding their federal contracting opportunities. Back in 2000, a study found that WOSBs were receiving merely 2.3% of the $200 billion federal contracts awarded annually—a far cry from the 5% goal projected by the federal government. While the process for increasing opportunities to WOSBs has been slow, this month the initiative has taken major steps. With this new initiative referred to as the Small Business Administration's (SBA) 8(m) program, contracting officers now have the capability to set-aside certain federal contracts for eligible WOSBs or Economically Disadvantaged Women-Owned Small Businesses (EDWOSBs). The WOSB Program identifies 83 four-digit North American Industry Classification Systems (NAICS) codes where WOSBs are underrepresented or substantially underrepresented. Starting July 2011, Contracting Officers may set aside contracts in these industries if the contract can be awarded at a "fair and reasonable price", the contracting officer has a reasonable expectation that two or more WOSBs or EDWOSBs will submit offers for the contract and the anticipated contract price is not greater than $5 million for manufacturing contracts and $3 million for other contracts.

Does your company have any skeletons in its’ closet? Any records of suspension, debarment, or non-responsibility determinations? Has a procurement official ever denied or reduced your award fee as a result of reckless or negligent behavior? Or perhaps your contract was recently terminated all together for fault and defective price determinations? Are you sure?? If your answer is “Yes” to any of the above, you may be disheartened to learn that a new government database tracking contractor misconduct and performance is expected to be made public by April 15, 2011. In a dramatic attempt to shed light on the conduct of firms that do business with the government, the GSA will be opening up its Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS) for public viewing. The publicizing of this system, which was previously available only to federal officials, will fulfill a provision in the wartime supplemental appropriations bill signed by President Obama in July, 2010, which requires that GSA disclose on a public website all information in FAPIIS.