Government contractors see promise in the General Services Administration’s plan to consolidate the current 24 multiple award schedules into a single schedule over the next couple years, according to preliminary results from the agency’s request for information on the plan, released Aug. 1.
The current system requires agencies using the program to purchase certain goods and services from pre-negotiated contracts that have been separated by topic areas, such as human capital, information technology and professional services.
GSA announced in late 2018 that they would begin the process of consolidating the schedules, citing problems with the current system that sometimes require agencies to purchase multiple services off of different schedules to complete a single project.
For example, an agency looking to reform its call center might have to make purchases off of an IT schedule for new technology, the professional services schedule for a consulting solution and the office management schedule for the call center’s furniture and carpeting. The agency would then have to cobble together the purchases from those separate schedules into a single project.
According to the RFI’s preliminary results, approximately 88 percent of those that responded to the request agreed that the proposed format would benefit both industry and federal agency customers, while 94 percent agreed that the proposed format was clear to understand.
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