The Office of Federal Procurement Policy within the White House Office of Management and Budget has released a memorandum highlighting governmentwide regulatory requirements and management practices that can be implemented by chief acquisition officers and senior procurement executives at agencies to help improve access of small businesses to federal subcontracting opportunities.
In a memo published Friday, OFPP said contracting officers should work with small business specialists to determine opportunities for subcontracting and assess an offeror’s performance in meeting its past small business subcontracting plan goals to predict the chances of achieving goals on the new subcontracting plan.
Other pre-award practices that agency contracting officials can adopt are considering subcontracting incentive strategies to help strengthen the supplier base, broadening the use of small business participation evaluation factors and strengthening the small business supplier base for research and development by considering a preference for Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer subcontractors.
Post-Award Considerations
The memo also outlines post-award reminders and considerations for contracting officers to boost small business subcontracting participation in the federal marketplace.
These include monitoring the submission of subcontracting plan reports, evaluating contractor achievement against the small business subcontracting plan and documenting the review in the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System and taking note of ongoing policy actions that can help small subcontractors compete as prime contractors.
The document was signed by Christine Harada, senior adviser at OFPP.
