The Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy at the White House has rolled out modifications to regulatory coverage on small business contracting to increase small business participation in the federal market
The changes are part of the Revolutionary Federal Acquisition Regulation, or FAR, Overhaul, also known as RFO, the White House said Friday. RFO is said to be the most significant reform ever to the 41-year-old FAR. The effort is intended to rewrite procurement rules in plain language and remove non-essential, non-statutory procurement requirements.
“The streamlining and common-sense stewardship that has been unleashed by the RFO is a once-in-a-generation win-win for agencies and the many tens of thousands of small business contractors that provide capability to our country,” Kevin Rhodes, senior adviser to OMB Director Russell Vought, commented. “Small businesses will have more manageable access to the federal market, and agencies will be able to leverage their talents to meet mission demands.”
Upcoming Changes for Small Businesses
According to the White House, some of the changes that are expected to strengthen small business participation in the federal contracting are:
- Removal of boilerplate government-unique requirements that have not been mandated by statute or executive order for commercial work
- Increase in the use of simplified acquisition procedures that shorten solicitation to award timelines
- Encouraging on-ramps in existing contracts and set-asides to improve small business access to government-wide and agency enterprise-wide task and delivery order contracts
- Improvement of post-award debriefings to improve small business performance in future competitions
- Making signing up and maintaining registration in the System for Award Management easier
- Highlighting non-regulatory best practices in the new FAR Companion and Practitioner Albums to help small businesses showcase capabilities without costly proposal processes and reduce barriers to participation
SBA said it will continue working with the FAR Council to align updates with government-wide small business contracting rules.
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