the sourcing go-round: whither thither hither

[alevin]

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=42938&dcn=todays_most_popular



Contractors now are performing tasks that require specialized skills, as well as mission critical functions and daily program management and support roles, the report stated. At the Defense Department alone, the number of contractors has jumped from 21 percent of the Pentagon's workforce to 39 percent during the last eight years.

The goal of insourcing efforts, FAIR advised, should be to ensure the federal government possesses the organic capabilities necessary to meet its many missions. In addition to more carefully defining the term "inherently governmental" and keeping those job functions in-house, agencies should work to identify and build core competencies, the report stated. FAIR cited systems engineers at Defense as an example of a core competency, pointing out that a lack of federal systems engineers to oversee and assess contractors' work could lead to high-profile failures and waste, fraud and abuse.

When identifying those important skills, Sharma said the goal is not to restrict a wide swath of jobs from being outsourced, but to delicately determine the right balance of government workers and contractors, so federal employees can oversee and interpret the work of contractors. As difficult as agencies have found it to settle on a feasible definition of "inherently governmental," identifying and retaining core competencies is likely to be even more challenging, Sharma said, because it will occur on an agency-by-agency, program-by-program basis.

[Silverbird]

The problem with using a lot of contractors is, you need a lot of contracting officers to watch them - and contracting officer is one of the most thankless and scrutinized jobs in Federal Government (lots of openings). Plus hiring people to "watch" is never as good as hiring someone whose job depends on doing the job right.

[CapeChem]

Outsource...insource
centralize.......decentralize
the respiration of government

[PessOptimist]

I can think of four contract employees right now who recently retired and were hired back to continue to do their jobs. All four are busy (read gainfully employed) all the time so this isn't just the good ol boy network in action.

I wonder if actions like this don't skew the statistics somewhat and I wonder why if there is so much work we don't get more FTEs.

Just wondering.

[Silverbird]

Although not as affected as some other Agencies simply because our cleaning and mail crew are primarily disabled people, in the last Admin we were under a lot of pressure to show that we outsourced work as much as possible. Other agencies appeared to be not so lucky as there was a push toward a *quota* of sourcing out work. There is a bit of a back-lash now, I think that's understandable, as long as we don't have another *quota* the other way.

[PessOptimist]

I can think of four contract employees right now who recently retired and were hired back to continue to do their jobs. All four are busy (read gainfully employed) all the time so this isn't just the good ol boy network in action.

I wonder if actions like this don't skew the statistics somewhat and I wonder why if there is so much work we don't get more FTEs.

Just wondering.

On Monday, another recently retired employee came back to the same job he retired from. That made me remember this thread. When he retired his manager was asked who was going to take over as project manager for his high profile important project. The manager replied, "I am and everyone who worked for him is realeased back to their foremen effective now". Then he made a couple of "manager announcements" and left the meeting.
This left the people who worked for this PM and the people who have to make his policies/equipment work in limbo for six weeks.
This is all just another example of management promising "we can do it" with no resources available. So they "out-source" it. Then they likely get a bonus for doing more with less. Usually based on the number of government employees, not considering the amount of work the contract employees do.
Out-sourcing is now a way of life here. Usually hiring all ready qualified people.
Since I'm reviewing the thread and moaning:

Silverbird said in two replies:


"Although not as affected as some other Agencies simply because our cleaning and mail crew are primarily disabled people, in the last Admin we were under a lot of pressure to show that we outsourced work as much as possible. Other agencies appeared to be not so lucky as there was a push toward a *quota* of sourcing out work."


This is very cool as far as hiring alternately abled people for the mail and cleaning crews. Our's are mostly alternately abled too. I am not sure if there is actually a quota. My main complaint is that the contracting officer cannot watch them all the time. So he has a "trusted crew supervisor" who is also a contract employee to watch them. At times I have had to escort a peer working on a job in some areas because "someone" has decided they don't need access. Then a cleaning crew member will "badge in" to the same area to empty the trash. Not escorted by the "trusted supervisor". I guess alternately abled contractors fall under different rules. If you complain, you become the cleaning crew.


The problem with using a lot of contractors is, you need a lot of contracting officers to watch them.

Yeah! Some contracting officers use the laisse faire technique and some micromanage the contract employees to death and never find time to do their primary job.

Once again, if we have so much work, why contractors for on going projects and not more FTEs?

[Silverbird]

On the re-hires: you know they can do the work so you re-hire them, and you don't have to watch them every second. Plus, there were a lot of early retirement deals. Lastly, to put it bluntly, it was rather difficult to come up with the data and "factoids" the higher-ups asked for over the last three years or so, since the data was beginning to whisper and mutter nasty things and that wasn't what they wanted so your research time was a total waste of time.

One of the few jobs that *always* has openings is contracting officer. If you want to have your investing life regulated to the hilt, an extensive background check, and endless reporting on where or what you are up to, even after you have left Government service, become a contract officer. Oh and always looking over your shoulder cause if anything goes wrong, your the first one in line. So if you can get a worker that's already vetted with a proven track record, you'd jump at the chance.

[alevin]

Yup. CO is a fallback/retraining possibility if get outsized from your preferred work around here. Knock on wood, it's sure not my preferred work. We had an engineer who went that route to stay employed when we couldn't afford to keep her working as engineer awhile back. She did have to relocate tho, which I think was ok with her, I still see her now and then. Of course these days, we scrape for enough engineers too.