Before the policy, agencies and their contracting officials were limited to only data from their respective agencies, hampering data-driven decisions, according to a White House fact sheet. But the finalized circular (A-137) establishes that acquisition data is an asset to be used across the government and instructs agencies to be prepared to collect and share that information. 

The policy “marks a paradigm shift in the government’s acquisition data management practices,” the fact sheet said.  

Jason Miller, the deputy director for management in the Office of Management and Budget that houses OFPP, told reporters at a Tuesday roundtable the circular makes acquisition information a “government asset” rather than an agency asset.

“It’s just a huge step in us unlocking the business intelligence that allows those 40,000 contracting officials to operate smarter, better — both on delivering on mission and addressing costs and requirements in ways that result in better outcomes,” Miller said.

Christine Harada, senior adviser who leads the OFPP team in the absence of a Senate-confirmed director, told reporters the guidance changed slightly since a draft version was released for public comment last year. The final version incorporates other work the office has done on data and data-related strategies.

Harada also noted that the administration has created a tool called the Procurement Co-Pilot that “demonstrates the value and the power of having such an enterprise-wide access, and we’ve been rolling that out with our acquisition workforce.”

Better contracting

The data circular is one of the four elements of the Biden administration’s Better Contracting Initiative to improve efficiency and save money on federal spending. The others focus on enterprise-wide software license negotiation, improving contract requirements, and getting more value from sole source and high-risk contracts.

Those other elements of that initiative are also moving forward. On improving negotiation for enterprise-wide software, Miller said the administration has already taken the first step by bringing together agencies that are big buyers of those products to navigate where they have common requirements. He said he’s hopeful that the administration will have more to share on that progress “very soon.” 

Under that prong of the Better Contracting Initiative, the General Services Administration will “lead a government-wide IT software license agreement with a large software provider.”

Harada said in the workshop process, all 24 Chief Financial Officers Act agencies agreed on over 80% of the requirements, and the remaining ones can be tailored agency-by-agency. “There’s been a lot of really good buy-in from the agencies on this,” Harada said.

The Tuesday announcement came as OFPP marked half a century as an office. Harada and Miller remarked on the accomplishments of the office since then.

“When we were first established, the acquisition workforce had no training — no training whatsoever,” Harada said, noting they’ve since made progress on “investing in the acquisition workforce.” 

She also highlighted the establishment of things like the Chief Acquisition Officers Council and the Interagency Suspension and Debarment Committee, adding that the theme of the past 50 years has been the government getting “more organized and buying as one.”

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Kiran Ahuja, director of the Office of Personnel Management, told House oversight lawmakers that the federal government won’t be able to compete for talent with private sector companies that are now codifying telework flexibilities after seeing success during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re seeing that this is the wave of the future in the private sector,” Ahuja testified before the House Oversight and Reform Government Operations Subcommittee. “The private sector is defining these positions based on if they can provide more workplace flexibility. They’re training their supervisors, they’re upgrading their IT. They’re working on all these dimensions that we want to be doing in the federal government so that we can compete with talent.”

The competition for talent is also occurring inside of government, where federal workers are jumping ship to join agencies that have greater telework options, Ahuja said.

“What we are seeing is agency-hopping, based on where employees see level of flexibility,” she said. “We don’t want agencies having to compete with each other for different employees within the federal government.”

Jason Miller, deputy director for management in the Office of Management and Budget, emphasized that telework is “particularly useful [in recruiting for] jobs that are critical skills: cybersecurity, IT, data analytics — some of those areas where some of this work can be performed in a telework setting is absolutely critical.”

“It’s an area where we have a gap today consistent with those sectors, with those workers across the country including the private sector. That’s a major tool for us to make sure that we’re filling that gap and addressing it going forward. And it’s an expectation, particularly for those in early career.”

Ahuja believes telework comes with a number of benefits — like enhanced productivity, engagement, morale and continuity of operations, and the possibility to recruit a more diverse and inclusive workforce from across the nation — and said OPM plans to provide agencies with “additional resources to chart a path forward.”

However, several lawmakers, mostly on the Republican side, didn’t buy into Ahuja’s thoughts on telework and asked for data to prove its benefits, urging that federal employees are more productive when working in person and need to return to normal, pre-COVID office levels, as President Biden suggested would be the case in his March State of the Union remarks.

“The president said in his State of the Union that federal workers were going to return back to work, and that has not been the case,” said Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga. “In fact, telework and remote work have expanded, and that’s a bit concerning to me.”

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