Agencies carried out job 183 competitions involving the workload of 6,678 full time employees, or about 1.7 percent of the federal workload the White House considers commercial, according to its report to Congress on competitive sourcing results for fiscal 2006.
Federal employees won 87 percent of the work competed last year. OMB said this number underscores the value of the competition process in eliminating inefficiencies because most work stays in house, awarded to a streamlined "most efficient organization." It also said competitions that on average took two to three years are currently averaging 13 months.
Most competitions continue to involve IT and property management, and "improvements set in motion by competitions" last year could generate savings or avoid costs of about $1.3 billion in the next five to ten years, OMB estimates.
Unions remain skeptical of savings estimates and OMB recently issued guidance to agencies on tracking the implementation and outcomes of competitions that wound up being outsourced in order to substantiate savings.
Unions say costs incurred prior to the public announcement of a competition are not included in the total, and many competitions are drawn out, often as a result of lawsuits or delays.
The report cites an award for IT services at the Army Corps of Engineers it estimates to save $950 million over the next six years, but it was first initiated in 2004 and litigation was only recently resolved, but NTEU said legal costs were not included in savings estimates.