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Priority of the President's Management Agenda

Managing the Business of Government

Challenge

The Federal Government awards over $1.5 trillion in federal contracts and financial assistance each year—and sometimes much more in times of crisis.

This creates an enterprise-level opportunity to lean on federal systems for managing the business of government—the goods and services we buy and the financial assistance and resources we provide and oversee—to create and sustain good quality union jobs, address persistent racial and gender wealth and wage gaps, and address other challenges our nation faces. The Administration has already taken bold action to leverage federal acquisition and financial assistance to take on our most pressing challenges as a country. Accomplishing these ambitious goals and activities collectively will also require continuous improvements in our procurement, financial assistance, and financial management ecosystems. This shift will require new measures and processes, new training for the federal workforce, and new tradeoffs that agencies together will need to address going forward.

Opportunity

We can harness this collective power and make connections across the federal acquisition and financial assistance systems to strengthen the U.S. manufacturing base and support American workers, catalyze new solutions that address the climate crisis and enhance sustainability, and advance equity.

The public will benefit from a government that buys together and manages financial assistance together, devoting attention to how these systems deliver results—prosperity, security, and opportunity—for all people in this country. Federal agencies will look across existing Administration initiatives to ensure that system-wide, continuous improvement in federal acquisition, financial management, and financial assistance systems occurs. This system-wide focus can include, for example: opportunity and issue spotting, including resolution of conflicts across discrete lines of effort; training and guidance for practitioners within agencies; data-management and evidence-building strategies; and other capacity-building strategies.

Leadership
Don Graves
Deputy Secretary • DOC
Andrea Palm
Deputy Secretary • HHS
Kristie Canegallo
Acting Deputy Secretary • DHS

Activity

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February 2024

Since its launch in October 2023, the Council on Federal Financial Assistance (COFFA) has convened Senior Financial Assistance Officers monthly and has also hosted community meetings to share relevant topics with the entire Federal financial assistance workforce. During this period, COFFA leadership identified priorities for the next twelve months to support the vision of the Council:

  • Creating a partnership among federal grant-making agencies;
  • Providing a single forum to inform Federal financial assistance policy, oversight, and technology activities; 
  • Providing strategic direction, policy recommendations, and priority-setting for other government-wide grant-related activities; 
  • Reducing administrative burdens for both federal agencies and recipients of Federal financial assistance, particularly those that may be under-resourced or underserved; and 
  • Advancing the Administration’s priorities to improve customer experience with delivery of services, improve equity, and leverage Federal financial assistance as a catalyst to build back better.

FY24 Q1 period marked the exciting launch of the Better Contracting Initiative (BCI), a significant step in supporting Strategy 1 within the Business of Government Priority Area. The BCI is a comprehensive, four-pronged strategy designed to improve federal government purchasing. It aims to:

  • Ensure better terms and prices for goods and services, with a focus on buying from small and disadvantaged businesses. 
  • Generate over $10 billion annually in savings and cost avoidance while improving the performance of federal contracts. 
  • Leverage data across federal agencies, negotiating common enterprise-wide software licenses, and 
  • Getting contract requirements right the first time–all to support a strategic approach in federal acquisition. 

A significant step toward negotiating common enterprise-wide software licenses has been the establishment of a government-wide acquisition strategy Interagency Project Team (IPT), tasked with reviewing agency contract files and analyzing pricing data to identify common terms and a strategic pricing approach for discussions with major software vendors in the coming months. Stay tuned to performance.gov for future updates. For more information about BCI, visit OMB’s website here.

Highlights

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December 2023

Under Strategy 1, the team on Priority Area 3 is focused on the Federal Government’s national strategy to build public health supply chain resiliency. Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Made in America Office (MIAO) and Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) are collaborating with experts in requirements, acquisition, and supply chain at the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in the development of a plan to strengthen the long-term health of the domestic Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) industry in furtherance of the Make PPE in America Act.  For Strategy 2, the Council on Federal Financial Assistance (COFFA), established by OMB Memorandum M-23-19, convened for its first meeting in October 2023. Together with the Chair OMB and Co-Chair HHS, council members are developing priorities for the COFFA to accomplish within the first year. One of the projects that already commenced is the identification of the core competencies necessary for the financial assistance workforce. This effort will help to identify the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary for this workforce that are the same at each Federal financial assistance agency. New milestones are presented in this update to communicate progress toward the completion of this project.

Highlights

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August 2023

Through this period, strategy leads continued to advance federal priorities through federal acquisition and Federal financial assistance. This release includes updates on accomplishments related to existing milestones and several new planned milestones.

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May 2023

Strategy leads continued to implement action plans to advance Federal priorities for sustainability and equity through Federal acquisition and Federal financial assistance. In Federal acquisition, this release includes important updates related to priority supply chains and investing in the acquisition workforce. Federal financial assistance leads announce the release of a new training for the financial assistance workforce.

Highlights

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March 2023

Cross-agency teams continued to develop and refine their action plans to advance sustainability and equity priorities for the Nation through the Federal acquisition and financial assistance systems. Each strategy has defined initial success metrics and milestones.

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November 2022

Cross-agency teams have been working to develop and refine action plans to achieve the President’s vision to leverage Federal acquisition and financial assistance systems to advance priorities for the Nation. Each strategy is defining strategy-wide success metrics to measure progress toward achieving their ambitious goals.

Highlights

Diverse & Resilient Federal Marketplace

Enhancing diversity in federal contracting to build a more resilient marketplace

Focused on enhancing the federal supplier base, this goal introduces a common definition of “new entrant” and two new analytics tools – the Federal Supplier Base Dashboard and the Procurement Equity Tool (government use only) – to guide agencies as they take steps to find small disadvantaged businesses and other contractors and measure progress in diversifying the federal supplier base. See the Memorandum implementing a common definition for “new entrant.”

Projects and Milestones

Completed

  • Issued guidance directing agencies to use a common definition for “new entrant” as they take steps to find small disadvantaged businesses and other contractors and measure progress in diversifying the federal supplier base.
  • Began using benchmarking to evaluate opportunities for strengthening supplier diversity.

Better Use of Acquisition Data

Expand interoperability of acquisition data for improved decision-making

The Procurement Co-Pilot application is designed to improve the efficiency and quality of market research by providing access to government-wide data to enable agencies to make better, more cost-effective acquisition decisions. 

Projects and Milestones

Completed

  • Completed Market Research and Pricing Data pilot to provide more detailed operational pricing and contract information to federal contracting personnel.

In progress

  • Release full report in June 2024.

Efficient Federal Financial Assistance

Strengthen and formalize the governance of Federal financial assistance

The Council on Federal Financial Assistance (COFFA) is working to ensure that federal agencies have the tools they need to deliver Federal financial assistance programs in an efficient, effective, and equitable manner, while also reducing administrative burdens on Federal financial assistance applicants and recipients.

Projects and Milestones

Completed

  • Established the Year 1 COFFA Priorities.

In progress

  • Formalize collaboration among existing interagency Federal financial assistance governance groups by FY24 Q3.
  • Publish a website to communicate COFFA Priorities and Resources by FY24 Q3.