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Small Businesses: Limited Information Available on Contract Bundling's Extent and Effects

GGD-00-82 Published: Mar 31, 2000. Publicly Released: May 18, 2000.
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Highlights

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed contract bundling and its effect on small businesses, focusing on: (1) whether the government has met the governmentwide goal of awarding 23 percent of its federal prime contracts to small businesses; (2) what the federal government knows about the extent of contract bundling and its effect on small businesses; and (3) the Small Business Administration's (SBA) efforts to oversee contract bundling by federal agencies.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Small Business Administration The Administrator, SBA, should develop a strategy setting forth how the agency can best achieve the results desired from oversight of contract bundling. The strategy should take into consideration the number of PCRs needed and their assigned procurement centers, training needed, timely resolution of potential bundling cases, and constraints the agency faces in implementing the strategy.
Closed – Implemented
OMB's Office of Federal Procurement along with SBA (Liz Hopewell and Linda Williams) developed a strategy to mitigate contract bundling in an October 2002 report. The report provides a strategy for oversight that holds agencies accountable for eliminating unnecessary contract bundling. The recommendations proposed a series of regulatory changes to ensure maximum compliance with current contract bundling laws and full use of the resources of the Small Business Administration and agencies' Offices of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization. SBA plans to work with OMB to implement the bundling strategy. Prior to this strategic plan, SBA hired 13 additional PCRs and plans to provide more extensive staff training that provide strategies to preclude bundling. In addition, SBA reported in December 2001, to the House and Senate Small Business Committee on the extent of contract bundling for the first 9 months of fiscal year 2001.

Full Report

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Topics

Contract oversightCost controlFederal procurement policyProcurement regulationsSmall business contractorsSmall businessProcurementU.S. Air ForceGovernment contractsPublishing