OFPP to contractors: Use ESRS to track subcontracting milestones

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy is requiring civilian government contractors to use a new online reporting system for tracking federal subcontracting goals.

In a recent memorandum, OFPP associate administrator Robert Burton also said that Defense Department contractors will likely begin using the new Electronic Subcontracting Reporting System (ESRS) in the second quarter of fiscal 2006.

ESRS went live Oct. 28, providing civilian agencies and their contractors a one-stop shop for demonstrating they are meeting federal milestones for subcontracting with small, disadvantaged, and women- and minority-owned businesses.

The General Services Administration's Integrated Acquisition Environment's e-government team started work on ESRS earlier this year and tapped Symplicity Corp. of Arlington, Va., to develop and implement the system.

ESRS was initially going to be deployed in August for civilian agencies, but GSA changed the schedule so it could be fully integrated with the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation, an online system that tracks agency spending for goods and services.

With the system now operational, Burton said civilian agencies and their contractors must begin submitting subcontracting data for fiscal 2004 and 2005 online.

Burton also said that civilian agencies can, at their discretion, give their contractors a 60-day extension to file their online subcontracting data for reports due Oct. 30.

One civilian agency, the United States Agency for International Development, told its contractors last month that it will not be using ESRS until it resolves problems with migrating data into FPDS-NG, which feeds information to the subcontracting system.

Rob Thormeyer is a writer for Washington Technology's sister publication, Government Computer News.