All Those in Favor of Insourcing Say 'Pfui!'

A report released last week by the Federal Acquisition Innovation and Reform (FAIR) Institute, a new nonprofit focusing on federal contracting reform, has touched off another skirmish in the never-ending war between government employees and contractors.

The FAIR Institute's report warns the Obama administration to take a “deliberate and systematic” approach to insourcing, or transferring functions performed by contractors to government employees. Since last year, federal agencies have been stepping up efforts at insourcing, but President Obama really got things rolling back in March when he directed the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to issue guidance on when it would be appropriate or inappropriate to subject certain government functions to private sector competition.

The report is a short policy paper that sets out several common-sense recommendations in a tone that is neither pro- nor anti-contractor. Yet the report seems to have opened up old wounds in the federal contracting community. It generated an immediate response in the comments section on FederalComputerWeek's blog, with the louder, more animated responses coming from the anti-contractor/anti-outsourcing crowd.

One commenter, presumably an Air Force employee, pithily sums up his/her feelings about the report and its recommendations: “Pfui!” Another writes, “There are many talented individuals with 'specialized expertise' sitting in civil service with little or no meaningful work and no funding because it was all shifted to contractors during the Bush years. That needs to end now!”

The negative reaction seems partly motivated by suspicion of the FAIR Institute itself. Not much is known about the organization, which was launched in April. However, the fact that its board includes the President/CEO of a federal contractor and others with past or present ties to the private sector might lead some to question whether the FAIR Institute can live up to its name as an honest and independent source of information.

-- Neil Gordon

Comments

[KSBR]

The "Institute" does not pass the nonpartisan test, but that's ok. Who the heck does when it comes to contractors or the civil service? Far more corporate ties behind this paper org than not; but let's not slide into four-legs-good, two-legs-bad thinking. Pretty amazing the wh paper got so much publicity (unless you believe in the "void" theory of the acquisition community). Thoughtful views and data from contractors deserve to be digested, at least as much as, say, a government union. Institute head is a serious management consultant, with expertise in supply-chain management; he's not an industry shill, and his ideas are at least defensible, even realistic, if not innovative. Realism does not require accepting or rejecting the goals of Obama proc reforms, which are hard for thinking taxpayers to deny. It's the quality and feasibility of USG employee expansion that requires heavy skepticism and a review of prior growth bursts of govt employee numbers . The solutions anticipated will be heavily political, which is fine as long as some facts and analysis are allowed to intrude. We wouldn't have it any other way.