GSA creates program office for Multiple Award Schedules

The General Services Administration announced in early October that it is creating a program office to manage contracts on the agency's schedules.

Comment on this article in The Forum.The new Multiple Awards Schedules Program Office will provide guidance and policy for customer agencies and commercial vendors. It is part of the GSA reorganization that resulted in the creation of the Federal Acquisition Service, which oversees the schedules program.

As GSA's primary acquisition vehicle, the schedules include more than 17,000 contracts for more than 11 million products and services. In fiscal 2007, sales on the schedules totaled $38 billion.

The schedules program's three business units -- General Supplies and Services, Integrated Technology Services, and Travel, Motor Vehicle and Cards Services -- will retain control of their own portfolios and operations. But the office will attempt to align their goals and strategies and to boost customer and vendor satisfaction.

"The FAS structure has placed the schedules program effectively in three separate portfolios," said Robin Bourne, director of the MAS Program Office. "So there was recognition of the need to have central management oversight to our strategic direction and give guidance across three portfolios."

Bourne said the decision to create the office wasn't a reaction to the decision by disgruntled vendors, including Sun Microsystems, to remove themselves from the schedules program. The aim is to provide a structure for consistency across MAS programs, she said. The office will be based in Crystal City, Va., and Bourne expects it to be fully staffed with about 15 program officers and contracting officials by the end of 2008.

The schedules program has received increased scrutiny this year over contentious pricing policies, which led some contractors to leave the program. GSA convened a blue-ribbon panel of procurement specialists who have met several times this year to discuss changes to the program, particularly the way fees for services are structured.

But the program office is not directly related to those efforts, Bourne said. Instead, it will look to increase vendor confidence in the schedules and to provide additional flexibility to ensure the latest products and services are available to federal customers.

Before the new entity can begin work, GSA must first establish a governance council as spelled out in the office's charter. The council will include representatives from each of the three business units, as well as Bourne and two regional GSA representatives. The council will meet quarterly.

The schedules program has a number of improvement projects in the works "that involve pulling people from portfolios and acquisition centers to get input from everyone," said Tricia Pierson, GSA's deputy commissioner for the Office of Acquisition Management. "We'll probably start seeing results this fall from those efforts."