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Full & Open Competition and the SDB Agency 5% Goal
This week's procurement quiz tests your awareness of how agencies attempt to meet their Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) 5% contracting goals:
In FY 2000, which were the only two major agencies to meet their 5% SDB contracting goal with dollars awarded to SDBs under terms of Full and Open Competition?
There is a general perception in the federal marketplace -- on both the government and commercial sides -- that in order to meet the government-wide goal of awarding 5% of all prime contract dollars to SDBs, agencies must issue contracts specifically set aside for small, disadvantaged businesses. Yet a small number of agencies committed to diversifying their vendor base have successfully recruited numbers of small, minority-owned firms to their full and open solicitations. Which agencies are these?
To find out, fire up your FPC 2000 final year-end application, clear all filter criteria and open up either the Search Wizard or Advanced Search dialogs by clicking the appropriate search button on the Active View Side Bar. You will need to set two filter criteria -- one on Small, Disadvantaged companies (not set-aside contracts) and the other on Solicitation Procedures = Full and Open.
Setting a filter on the Type of Business Code for SDB firms should be a familiar exercise. Find the Type of Business field in the Contract field group and enter just the letter "A" for Small, Minority-owned Firm in the search box.
Next, select the Solicitation Procedures field from the same contract group and open the field's index by clicking on the Binoculars icon. You will see that the first three codes -- A, B and C -- all reference different kinds of F&O classifications. Highlight Solicitation Procedures Code A and, with either Shift Key depressed, use the Down Arrow button to slide the cursor down to Code C. Then press Enter to load all three codes into the search box. With codes entered in both the Type of Business and Solicitation Procedures search fields, click the Apply and view the results on the Agency Active View Screen.
Scanning down the % of Row $ column in the ranked list of 36 selected agencies, we see that the third and eleventh entries show SDB F&O dollar shares as a percent of total agency spending greater than 5%. The answer to this week's quiz is the Department of Commerce (5.08%) and the Agency for International Development (7.54%).
The fact that certain agencies meet SDB contracting goals with F&O solicitations suggests a degree of commitment by these agencies to small business. Not only are these agencies more likely to support small business, they may also serve as models for other agencies who have yet to reach their SDB goals.
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