Emerging Policy and Practice Issues

This paper, presented at the West Government Contracts Year in Review Conference (covering 2013), attempts to identify the key trends and issues in U.S. federal procurement for 2013. Consistent with prior practice, this chapter offers extensive coverage of the federal procurement spending trend and attempts to predict what lies ahead. Budgetary and financial insecurity were less significant last year, but there is no question that the spending reduction represents a meaningful change in the long-term trend. More broadly, the paper discusses agency purchasing data (particularly at the Defense Department), grants spending and major changes in uniform guidance, the continued Defense Department Better Buying Power Initiative (now in version 2.0) and acquisition performance measurement (or metrics), the acquisition workforce, cyber-security, scandals and the toxic contracting environment, and contractor fatalities