GSA pilot to put contracts online

Call for public comment in the Federal Register

The General Services Administration is working on a pilot program to make all federal contracts available online.

GSA's Integrated Acquisition Environment Program Management Office is developing the project as part of the government's emphasis on using technology to make government activities more accessible to the public.

According to the office, the new system will augment existing offerings including FedBizOpps and the Federal Procurement Data System. Those systems offer a "limited amount" of information about contract awards, but the contracts themselves are usually not available on the Web, Integrated Acquisition Environment program officials said in a request for comments.

The proposal, which was inspired in part by requests from public access groups, will make government information more easily available, enable the kind of dialogue that identifies and remedies poor contracting practices, and reduce the government's workload when fulfilling Freedom of Information Act requests, according to program officials.