Officials don't want hands dirtied by acquisition reforms, senator says
Holding up a complicated chart, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said many of the top acquisition policy officials are too busy to find a way to make the federal buying process simpler and faster.
“They’re too busy to get their hands dirty to try to fix it,” he said Sept. 13, referring to the members of the Federal Acquisition Regulation Council members. The council is led by the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, Dan Gordon.
The overwhelming chart describes the acquisition process from the budgeting to planning a procurement to defining the appropriate requirements to meet its needs. The diagram was similar to this chart on the Integrated Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Life Cycle Management System.
Inhofe, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was speaking at the confirmation hearing of Ashton Carter to be deputy defense secretary.
Carter, who currently is undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, said officials are learning their lessons on how to best contract work in contingency operations and during war. Officials have had to move quickly to get necessary supplies bought, and brought to the battlefield, while keeping an eye on prices and value. With those lessons, Defense Department officials want to apply the fast and agile techniques to acquisition overall and even the FAR, he said.
More broadly, Carter also said he wants training for the acquisition workforce regarding the fast-lane acquisition as well as the purchase of services and information on questioning whether a program’s requirements are defined appropriately early in the buying process.
Posted by Matthew Weigelt on Sep 13, 2011 at 10:56 AM