Hiring, retention, and development of the workforce at the Federal Acquisition Service are among the top management challenges at GSA, according to the annual assessment by the IG’s office there.
FAS “requires a robust and well-qualified acquisition workforce in order to award and administer increasingly complex acquisitions and successfully implement FAS’s new major initiatives,” said a report. Contracting officers are responsible for managing some 16,000 schedule contracts that generate over $33 billion in annual sales, and in FY 2015 each contracting officer administered, on average, 85 contracts, it said.
The IG repeated previously raised concerns that contracting officers are not receiving specialized training in schedule acquisitions necessary to perform their jobs. It said that the GSA still has not fully developed such training and that “the limited availability of schedule-related training puts the government at an increased risk that schedule contracts may be improperly awarded and/or administered.”
Further, FAS does not have a comprehensive human capital plan to address hiring, retention, and succession planning for its acquisition workforce, it said.
“With 30 percent of its acquisition workforce eligible to retire within the next five years, FAS should develop and implement a comprehensive human capital plan to recruit, hire, and retain the contracting staff necessary to fulfill its mission. Without such a plan, FAS may be hiring contracting staff without assessing hiring needs and costs, considering turnover rates, and preparing for upcoming retirements,” it said.