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FY 16-17: Agency Priority Goal
Maximize small business participation in government contracting
Priority Goal
Goal Overview
When a small business is awarded a government contract, the small business is often able to quickly create jobs and spur economic growth. The government agency often has a “direct line” to the CEO, helping ensure that products and services are meeting or exceeding expectations and serving America’s taxpayers. Also, underserved communities – including women, minorities, veterans and others – often have extreme difficulty in accessing federal contracting opportunities as market gaps remain. SBA’s unique contracting programs provide a path to business growth for these populations.
Congress has mandated that small businesses receive 23% of federal government prime contracting dollars, including 5% of prime and subcontracts to Small Disadvantage Businesses; 5% of prime and subcontracts to Women-Owned Small Businesses; 3% of prime and subcontracts to HUBZone Small Businesses; and 3% of prime and subcontracts to Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses.
Meeting and exceeding the federal government’s small business procurement goals continues to be an Administration priority. Federal contracting with small businesses is a win-win. Small businesses get the revenue they need to grow their businesses and create jobs, and the federal government gets the opportunity to work with some of America’s most innovative and nimble small businesses, often times with a direct line to the CEO.
This Priority Goal directly supports SBA’s strategic objectives:
- Strategic Objective 1.2 – Ensure federal contracting goals are met or exceeded by collaborating across the federal government to expand opportunities for small businesses and strengthen the integrity of the federal contracting certification process and data.
- Strategic Objective 2.1 – Ensure inclusive entrepreneurship by expanding access and opportunity to small businesses and entrepreneurs in communities where market gaps remain
Small businesses are agile, innovative and affordable partners for the federal government. Through small business contracting, the federal government acts as a catalyst for small business growth, innovation, and supports the national economic security of the nation. Congress designated SBA as the agency responsible for overseeing small business contracting across the federal government. The SBA takes this responsibility seriously as the strongest voice for small business across the Administration.
Key barriers and challenges:
- The unpredictable and changing budget climate is a challenge for small businesses, and SBA is working hard to create an environment where small businesses can be successful in the federal procurement marketplace.
- The instability and ambiguity caused by Continuing Resolutions make it difficult to agency acquisition staff to plan effectively for small business utilization.
- Entering the federal supply chain can often be a lengthy and arduous process for many small businesses.
- The Administration and SBA continue to increase efforts and collaboration to provide more opportunities for small businesses to compete for and win federal contracts.
- Strategic Sourcing, Bundling, and Contracting Consolidation continue to be major concerns for small business opportunity and expansion. While the government strives to balance affordability with opportunity, SBA engages with agencies to continue to promote broader competitive opportunities to ensure the health of the small business industrial base is not adversely affected due to strategic sourcing or consolidating requirements and to protect small business from contract bundling.
SBA must continue to implement effective and efficient strategies to monitor the agencies’ progress, support small businesses interested in working with the government, and improve the data quality agencies use to manage their contracting activities.
Strategies
SBA is focused on a number of initiatives, as well as the 8(a) Business Development Priority Goal, to meet the 23 percent goal and subgoals including:
- Implementation of the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 and the FY13, FY14 and FY15 National Defense Authorization Acts – SBA has implemented many of the contracting provisions contained in the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 and the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 related to increasing opportunities for small business contracting and minimizing fraud, waste and abuse in the programs. SBA finalized rules on subcontracting, setting aside multiple-award contracts and orders for small businesses, consolidation and size and status integrity. SBA has also published proposed rules addressing prime/sub teaming efforts on set aside contracts, and implementing a small business mentor protégé program. These rules will give agencies the tools they need to increase small business utilization. SBA is drafting other regulations to address credit for lower tier subcontracting on small business subcontracting plans, as well as implementation of the statutory sole source authority for women owned small business concerns.
- Collaboration with White House and Senior Agency officials – SBA is collaborating with the White House and Senior Officials at each agency to ensure agencies are being held accountable for the government-wide small business contracting goal. Each agency receives an Agency Final Goaling Letter which is reported weekly on The Small Business Federal Procurement Scorecard. This unprecedented amount of collaboration has ensured top-level leadership commitment from across the federal government to utilize small businesses.
- Government Contracting (GC) Classroom – SBA realizes that selling to the government requires a deeper understanding of federal contracting rules and regulations that are different than selling in the commercial sector. The Agency continues to provide small businesses with contracting training tools including a series of online contracting courses to help prospective and existing small businesses understand the basics about contracting with federal agencies. The GC Classroom can be accessed at www.sba.gov/gcclassroom.
- Small Business Outreach Events – SBA knows that for agencies to award contracts to small businesses, they need qualified small businesses ready to succeed in the federal procurement arena. To that end, SBA has increased its outreach to ensure that small businesses are aware of its contracting programs and educate small businesses on the nuances of federal contracting.
- Webinars – To assist in the growth of Small Disadvantaged Business procurement, SBA continues to conduct webinars to potential and current 8(a) participants. Webinars directed at potential participants offer tips for success in preparing and submitting applications – stronger applications to the program lead to more 8(a) participants. Webinars directed at current participants provide information on keeping firms in compliance so that the portfolio remains strong and able to receive more contracts. All of these webinars are free and offered continually throughout the year.
- Training for Contracting Officers – To increase understanding and ease of use of the 8(a) Program, SBA continues to engage in Partnership Agreement training with contracting agencies. The purpose of these training sessions is to ensure that Federal contracting officers and small business specialists understand the rules of the 8(a) Program and how the program is used. The benefits of these sessions is the building of a solid relationship between the SBA and contracting agencies – providing contracting officers and specialists a resource for answering questions, while SBA learns of the agencies’ procurement needs and where an increase in 8(a) participation can occur. SBA conducts these sessions with agencies regularly, believing that the dialog leads to an increase in 8(a) awareness and number of contracts, leading to meeting the Small Disadvantaged Business goal,
- Outreach in HUBZones – SBA launched Destination: HUB to heighten awareness of the HUBZone Program in both the acquisition and economic development communities. This effort aims to promote and support HUBZone-certified firms in securing a better share of contract opportunities by ensuring that local economic development agencies, government officials, federal buyers, and prime contractors work hand-in-hand to bring more contract awards to HUBZone-certified firms.
- Outreach to Women – SBA is collaborating with Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) and American Express OPEN on the ChallengeHER campaign, to inform Woman-Owned Small Businesses about the opportunities available within the federal supply chain.
- Outreach to Veterans – SBA’s Office of Veterans Business Development (OVBD) grants $300,000 per year to the Montgomery County Chamber Community Foundation (MCCF)'s Veterans Institute for Procurement, which has trained over 450 Service-Disabled Veteran (SDV) and Veteran-Owned (VO) small businesses with SBA support -- improving their capacity to compete for, and win, federal contracts.
- Compliance Reviews. SBA recognizes that as the Nation’s small business oversight agency for federal prime and subcontracting execution, it has the unique responsibility to ensure that federal agency and their large prime contracting partners provide maximum practicable opportunity for small business and are fully compliant with the regulations that govern the programs. To this end, SBA’s Procurement Center Representatives (PCR) and Commercial Marketing Representatives (CMR) provide complimentary roles in conducting compliance reviews for both agency and private industry concerns to see that small businesses are being afforded the opportunity to compete to the greatest extent possible.
- Protecting Against Small Business Fraud. SBA is the sole advocate for small businesses in assessing that only small businesses compete and are awarded federal contracting awards through its Size Determination Program. This program provides both contracting officers and competitive contractors a fair process for reviewing and challenging awards to firms that may be other-than small. In this way SBA ensures that only small business receives the awards that are directed for small business.
- Providing Small Businesses a New Start. SBA’s Certificate of Competency (CoC) Program affords otherwise apparent small business contract awardees of federal agency contracts an impartial assessment of their capability to perform when agencies question their ability to successfully complete a contract. As an independent arbiter, SBA can issue a CoC for a given contract ensuring to the agency’s contracting officer that the firm is fully capable of performing. This provides much needed ability for small businesses to have an advocate for them especially when breaking into a contracting area that they may not have performed in previously.
- Promoting Small Business Partnerships. SBA is hosting a series of events featuring educational sessions and matchmaking between federal buyers and small businesses to help small businesses expand their access to federal opportunities.
Progress Update
By law, 23 percent of federal government prime contracting dollars are set-aside for small businesses, which includes 5 percent of prime and subcontracts to small disadvantaged businesses and women-owned small businesses and 3 percent of prime and subcontracts to HUBZone small businesses and service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses. In FY 2016, Quarter 3, SBA published the FY 2015 Small Business Procurement Scorecard. In FY 2015, the federal government surpassed its prime contracting goal and small businesses were awarded $90.7 billion in contracting dollars. Performance in all the small business prime contracting and socio-economic categories showed significant improvement. The SBA surpassed its goals for service-disabled veterans (FY 2015 result was 3.93 percent) and small disadvantaged businesses (FY 2015 result was 10.06 percent) due in part to the successful Mentor-Protégé program that fosters relationships between successful firms and disadvantaged small businesses. The number of small business contracting dollars going to women-owned small businesses increased from 4.68 percent in FY 2014 to 5.06 percent in FY 2015. The SBA worked with the Office of Federal Procurement Policy to integrate small business data quality reviews (anomaly reports) into each agency’s contracting processes and procedures. As a result, 19 of the 24 CFO-Act agencies exceeded their individual agency goal.
In FY 2016, the SBA has implemented many of the contracting provisions contained in the Small Business Jobs Act (SBJA) of 2010 and the National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAAs) of 2013, 14, 15 and 16 related to increasing opportunities for small business contracting and minimizing fraud, waste and abuse in small business contracting programs. SBA finalized rules on subcontracting, setting aside multiple-award contracts and orders for small businesses, consolidation, size, and status integrity. The SBA issued a final rule addressing new limitations on subcontracting provisions that apply to set aside contracts, which authorize similarly situated entities to team together to perform set aside contracts; the rule also made it easier for firms to perform contracts as joint ventures and updated its rules on the non-manufacturer rule, as well as aligning HUBZone rules with the rules of the other socioeconomic programs to make the HUBZone program more competitive. Furthermore, a final mentor protégé rule was issued in July 2016. This rule allows any small business to enter into a mentor protégé relationship with a mentor that will provide technical, management, financial or other assistance to the protégé. The approved mentor-protégé firms may also enter into joint ventures to perform government contracts and be considered small and or eligible for set aside or sole source contracts, based on the status of the protégé. SBA also sent a final rule to OMB for interagency review in the 4th quarter which implements Section 1614 of the NDAA of 2014, which provides that other-than-small business concerns with small business subcontracting plans shall establish goals and report on performance at the first tier of subcontracting as well as lower tiers. These rules will give agencies the tools they need to increase small business utilization.
The SBA issued external and internal guidance for the second phase of the streamline process of initial applications in the HUBZone Office resulting in an average processing time of 77 days, a 39% reduction from the Quarter 2 processing timeframes of 126 days. SBA provided HUBZone education to approximately 1,736 individuals through trainings to acquisition and small business specialist from various Federal agencies, and via Destination HUB events in Ohio, Michigan, Texas, New Jersey, and New York. The HUBZone office drafted the final rule implementing sections of the NDAA of 2016, which authorized the following: 1) Native Hawaiian Organizations to own HUBZone small business concerns; 2) expanded the definition of “base closure area” (aka BRACs) under the HUBZone program by extending HUBZone eligibility for BRACs to 8 years (up from 5), 3) Expanded HUBZone eligibility to neighboring census tracts and non-metropolitan counties; and 4) Authorized the inclusion of “qualified disaster areas” under the HUBZone program. It is expected that the rule will become final during the 1st quarter of 2017.
Additionally, in Quarter 4, FY 2016 SBA began conducting its annual prime contracting compliance Surveillance Reviews (SR). The SR evaluates federal agency’s procurement center small business programs, performance, policies, practices and execution to provide maximum practicable opportunity for small business concerns. These thirty-one (31) reviews were completed in Quarter 4. Furthermore, SBA continued the phased launch of the new SBA One Contracting portal, which established a new portal for WOSB Federal Contract Program participants. This investment improves responsiveness to WOSB/EDWOSB applicants; enhances verification of eligibility and improve contracting officer ability to award contracts. Phase one supported WOSB/EDWOSB documentation into a new Repository. SBA also conducted five (5) ChallengeHER events in Quarter 4, FY 2016. These education events were held in Tuscon, AZ; Miami, FL; New Orleans, LA; St. Louis, MO; and Long Beach, CA.
The SBA also achieved the following during Q4:
- Chaired three (3) Small Business Procurement Advisory Council Meetings to provide updates on small business programs and share best practices
- Held small business recruitment events throughout SBA’s 68 District Offices through ChallengeHER, Destination HUB, and other outreach activities and events
- Worked with 24 CFO-Act agencies to provide input on revised small business scorecard methodology and submitted final recommended guidance to OFPP. Authorization to proceed was granted by OFPP.
- Provided the 24 CFO-Act agencies with their proposed FY2017 prime and subcontracting small business procurement goals.
- Completed report on Annual Prime Contracting and Subcontracting Compliance Reviews of federal agency and private industry large businesses to reflect maximum small business opportunity
- Continued training and working with agencies to identify opportunities for 8(a) firms
- Conducted FY 2016 Surveillance Reviews on Federal Agency Performance
Next Steps
FY 2017 - Quarter One
- Chair three (3) Small Business Procurement Advisory Council Meetings to provide updates on small business programs and share best practices
- Ensure agencies develop plans to achieve their small business goals
- Hold three (3) stakeholder calls
- Finalize the agency small business procurement goals for FY 2017
- Conduct HUBZone Train-The-Trainer webinars
- Publish FY17 Surveillance Review Procurement for Federal Agencies
FY 2017 – Quarter Two
- Chair three (3) Small Business Procurement Advisory Council Meetings to provide updates on small business programs and share best practices
- Work on the FY2016 Small Business Procurement Scorecard government-wide and agency calculations
- Add courses to the Government Contracting Classroom
- Hold three (3) stakeholder calls
- Hold small business recruitment events throughout SBA’s 68 District Offices
- Schedule FY17 Surveillance Reviews on Federal Agencies
FY 2017 - Quarter Three
- Hold White House Small Business Procurement Group Meeting with 24 CFO-Act agencies
- Chair three (3) Small Business Procurement Advisory Council Meetings to provide updates on small business programs and share best practices
- Hold three (3) stakeholder calls
- Hold small business recruitment events throughout SBA’s 68 District Offices
- Work with 24 CFO-Act agencies to set small business procurement goals for FY2018
- Release FY2016 Small Business Procurement Scorecard
- Begin conducting FY17 Surveillance Reviews for Federal Agencies
FY 2017 - Quarter Four
- Hold White House Small Business Procurement Group Meeting with the Big Seven (7) agencies
- Chair three (3) Small Business Procurement Advisory Council Meetings to provide updates on small business programs and share best practices
- Hold three (3) stakeholder calls
- Report on Annual Prime Contracting and Subcontracting Compliance Reviews of federal agency and private industry large businesses to reflect maximum small business opportunity
- Provide agencies with proposed FY2018 prime and subcontracting goals
- Complete FY17 Surveillance Reviews on Federal Agencies
Expand All
Performance Indicators
Percentage of federal prime contracts awarded to small business (23%)
Percentage of federal government prime contracts awarded to small disadvantaged business (5%)
Percentage of federal government prime contracts awarded to women-owned small businesses (5%)
Percentage of federal government prime contracts awarded to Service-Disabled Veterans (3%)
Percentage of federal government prime contracts awarded to HUBZone (3%)
Other Indicators
Dollar amount of all federal contract dollars awarded
Dollar amount of federal contract dollars awarded to small businesses
Contributing Programs & Other Factors
The SBA’s Office of Government Contracting and Business Development (GCBD) is responsible for ensuring that the federal government meets the statutorily defined goals for small business procurement. Each year, SBA negotiates with agencies to establish individual goals that, in the aggregate, constitute the government-wide goals. GCBD encourages, monitors, and facilitates the sharing of best practices in government contracting with chief acquisition officers, senior procurement representatives and agency small business directors throughout the federal government.
Each federal agency is responsible for meeting its respective small business goal, and therefore has an important role to play in helping achieve the government-wide goal. The SBA works closely with the OMB’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) to collaborate on important initiatives and develop strategies for maximizing small business participation in federal procurement.
- Small Business Procurement Advisory Council (SBPAC). SBA chairs the SBPAC which includes directors of the Offices of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization. These directors are the advocates for small business within each agency and meet regularly with their procurement offices to encourage the use of small businesses in meeting their agency goals.
- Collaboration with White House and Senior Officials. On a regular basis, the SBA collaborates with the White House and Senior Officials at each agency to ensure agencies are being held accountable for the government-wide small business contracting goal. This unprecedented collaboration has facilitated the sharing of best practices and has ensured top-level leadership commitment from across the federal government.
- Small Business Frontline Advocacy. SBA’s Office of Government Contracting interacts on a daily basis with federal agencies and large prime contractors with subcontracting requirements to ensure that maximum practicable opportunity is being afforded small business concerns. These field agents participate in acquisition strategies of all federal agencies, support market analysis, acquisition structure, subcontracting plan development and execution, and perform compliance reviews of both agency and industry, to ensure that small businesses have the access and information to compete. In addition, they review small business size issues and perform capability assessments of prospective small businesses that may be in line for awards as needed.
- Data Quality Process and the Data Quality Working Group. SBA cannot alter the federal procurement data that has been input into FPDS-NG. However, the Agency continuously takes steps to improve data integrity. Each federal agency is responsible for ensuring the quality of its own contracting data, but SBA conducts additional analysis to help them identify any potential data anomalies.
- In prior years, SBA provided agencies with individualized reports of anomalies related to their small business contracting data in order to identify any issues prior to SBA’s release of the Small Business Procurement Scorecard.
- The FY 2012 Anomaly process used by SBA focused on a “spot-check” for a selected number of agencies. SBA provided Anomaly Reports to the 10 agencies with the highest FY 2012 anomaly small business eligible dollars.
- In FY 2013, SBA provided reports and training via FPDS-NG reports for agencies to conduct their own anomaly analysis.
- SBA will continue to work with OFPP and the interagency procurement data quality working group to develop a process that will (1) improve efforts to achieve small business goals, (2) reduce burden on the workforce, and (3) improve data quality. As part of its ongoing data quality efforts, the SBA will continue to work with federal agency procurement staff to provide tools to encourage data reviews, improvements to procurement systems and training sessions to improve accuracy. SBA is also recruiting to fill a data quality analyst position to monitor and address small business prime contracting and subcontracting data within SBA and across government-wide data systems.
The SBA programs that contribute to this Agency Priority goal are: Size Standards, Mentor-Protégé, Procurement Assistance, Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Procurement, Small Business Procurement Set-Aside, Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contracting, 7(j) Technical Assistance, 8(a) Business Development, HUBZone.
The Office of Communications and Public Liaison (OCPL), the Office of Entrepreneurial Development (OED), and the Office of Field Operations (OFO) will promote SBA’s contracting opportunities to small business owners through comprehensive and coordinated marketing and outreach efforts, including online and in-person workshops and trainings. Additionally, SBA will work with its resource partners (including Women’s Business Centers and Small Business Development Centers) to develop outreach and training initiatives and other tools to help fully deploy the Agency’s national network behind this goal.
Strategic Objectives
Strategic Objective:
Statement:
Ensure federal contracting goals are me and/or exceeded by collaborating across the federal government to expand opportunities for small businesses and strengthen the integrity of the federal contracting certification process and data.
Description:
Small business contracting is one of the most important federal programs to help America’s small businesses grow and create jobs. The federal government gets to work with the most innovative small businesses in America today, and small businesses get critical revenue to build and scale their operations. SBA’s goal is to make sure that all federal agencies meet or exceed their targets for federal prime contracting dollars awarded to small businesses. The SBA is improving coordination and communication across the federal government, facilitating matchmaking events, increasing online trainings and holding senior officials accountable for meeting their agencies’ small business goals. SBA continues to simplify access to federal contracting opportunities and educate small businesses on the contracting opportunities available to them. The SBA is also streamlining the certification process and data for federal contracting and continues to aggressively root out fraud, waste and abuse in small business contracting to ensure that contracting dollars go to deserving small businesses.
Agency Priority Goals
Statement: Through September 30, 2017, maximize small business participation in federal prime contracting to meet the statutory goal of 23%, ensure targets for subgoals are met, and reduce participation by ineligible firms.
Description: When a small business is awarded a government contract, the small business is often able to quickly create jobs and spur economic growth. The government agency often has a “direct line” to the CEO, helping ensure that products and services are meeting or exceeding expectations and serving America’s taxpayers. Also, underserved communities – including women, minorities, veterans and others – often have extreme difficulty in accessing federal contracting opportunities as market gaps remain. SBA’s unique contracting programs provide a path to business growth for these populations. Congress has mandated that small businesses receive 23% of federal government prime contracting dollars, including 5% of prime and subcontracts to Small Disadvantage Businesses; 5% of prime and subcontracts to Women-Owned Small Businesses; 3% of prime and subcontracts to HUBZone Small Businesses; and 3% of prime and subcontracts to Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses. Meeting and exceeding the federal government’s small business procurement goals continues to be an Administration priority. Federal contracting with small businesses is a win-win. Small businesses get the revenue they need to grow their businesses and create jobs, and the federal government gets the opportunity to work with some of America’s most innovative and nimble small businesses, often times with a direct line to the CEO. This Priority Goal directly supports SBA’s strategic objectives: Small businesses are agile, innovative and affordable partners for the federal government. Through small business contracting, the federal government acts as a catalyst for small business growth, innovation, and supports the national economic security of the nation. Congress designated SBA as the agency responsible for overseeing small business contracting across the federal government. The SBA takes this responsibility seriously as the strongest voice for small business across the Administration. Key barriers and challenges: SBA must continue to implement effective and efficient strategies to monitor the agencies’ progress, support small businesses interested in working with the government, and improve the data quality agencies use to manage their contracting activities.
Statement: By September 30, 2017, support more disadvantaged small businesses by increasing the number of approved 8(a)-certification applications by 5% each fiscal year, FY 2016 and FY 2017.
Description: The 8(a) Program is an essential instrument for helping socially and economically disadvantaged entrepreneurs gain access to the economic mainstream of American society. The program helps thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs to gain a foothold in government contracting. 8(a) firms are also provided with business development assistance and can participate in the Mentor Protégé Program to build their competitive and institutional know-how to participate in competitive acquisitions. A few years ago, the 8(a) Program boasted over 9,000 certified 8(a) participants, but has declined to less than 4,700 due to the administratively burdensome application process. Though the regulatory guidance provides the SBA approximately 90 days to process a complete application, several firms have endured delays that extend anywhere from 6 months to several years. Further, the SBA rate of approval for applicants that complete the application process is exceptionally low, under 50%. While over 2,000 applicants apply each year, the SBA rejects most applications as incomplete or missing documentation. Historically, only 25% of the applicants or about 500-600 applicants per year get through the burdensome process for a final decision from the Associate Administrator of the Office of 8(a) Business Development. The SBA’s low rate of approval has led to an industry of third party firms that charge socially and economically disadvantaged applicants anywhere from $5,000 to $75,000 to prepare the application and respond to the SBA processors. Some of these firms are taking advantage of applicants; and regardless of the amount paid, there is no guarantee of approval because the SBA approval rate is consistently less than 50%. This Priority Goal is designed to grow the 8(a) Program by improving customer service for the 8(a) applicants and reduce the unnecessary administrative burdens on applicant firms. Growth of the program will open opportunities for socially and economically disadvantaged entrepreneurs to gain a foothold in government contracting. The mission of the Office of Business Development is to execute activities authorized under Sections 8(a) and 7(j) of the Small Business Act to provide business development assistance to firms that are owned and controlled by economically and socially disadvantaged individuals. The office fulfills its mission by certifying the eligibility of prospective 8(a) business development firm participants and managing a national program that provides marketing, managerial, technical, and procurement assistance to help eligible businesses achieve their full competitive potential. The SBA will continue to work collaboratively with community development partners, credit unions, minority associations and others to tailor programs to meet their needs and ensure that SBA’s programs remain accessible to underserved communities. This Priority Goal directly supports SBA’s strategic objectives: The goals address the ongoing decline in number of 8(a) small businesses. Through 8(a) sole source and competitive contracting opportunities, the federal government acts as a catalyst for small business growth, innovation, job creation, and supports the national economic security of the nation. When a small business gets a government contract, the small business is often able to quickly create jobs and spur economic growth. The government agency often has a “direct line” to the CEO, helping ensure that products and services are meeting or exceeding expectations and serving America’s taxpayers. Key barriers and challenges: Many challenges exist for growing the 8(a) program and increasing the total number of application approvals for 8(a) firms. However, the SBA is committed to make smart, bold, and customer focused changes to make the 8(a) program accessible to all firms that meet the eligibility requirements of the program. Consistent measurement of progress and monitoring of implementation of new and streamlined procedures will be key to avoid reverting to historical trends of rejecting 50% of more of the completed applications. Challenges include: The SBA programs that contribute to this Agency Priority Goal are: Size Standards, Mentor-Protégé, 8(a) Business Development, 7(j) Technical Assistance.
Statement: Maximize small business participation in federal government contracting to meet the statutory goals and reduce participation by ineligible firms.
Description: Congress has mandated that small businesses receive 23% of federal government prime contracting dollars, including 5% of prime and subcontracts to Small Disadvantage Businesses; 5% of prime and subcontracts to Women-Owned Small Businesses; 3% of prime and subcontracts to HUBZone Small Businesses; and 3% of prime and subcontracts to Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses Meeting and exceeding the federal government’s small business procurement goals continues to be an Administration priority. Federal contracting with small businesses is a win-win. Small businesses get the revenue they need to grow their businesses and create jobs, and the federal government gets the opportunity to work with some of America’s most innovative and nimble small businesses, often times with a direct line to the CEO. In FY 2012, the federal government made real progress toward the 23 percent goal, with 22.25 percent or $89.9 billion in federal contracting dollars going to small businesses compared to 21.65 percent in FY 2011, with significant impact in key areas: As a result of a government wide focus on increasing small business contracting opportunities, during President Obama’s first term (FY2009 - FY2012) the federal government awarded $376.2 billion in federal contracting dollars to small businesses. This is a $48.1 billion increase over the four preceding years even as we have seen reduced spending overall. Also, since President Obama took office, the SBA has supported more than $132.61 billion in Federal government contracting dollars to small disadvantaged businesses. This represents a 36.6 percent increase when compared to the prior Administration. Under the Bush Administration’s first term, $97.10 billion in federal government contracting dollars were awarded to small disadvantaged businesses. Although we have seen marked success over the last few years, we know more must be done. Many challenges exist for small businesses seeking to enter the federal procurement marketplace. SBA’s GCBD unit must implement effective and efficient strategies to monitor the agencies’ progress to goal, support small businesses interested in working with the government and encourage agencies to improve data quality when reporting their contracting activities. SBA will increase its efforts to collaborate with and hold federal agencies accountable to achieving their goals.
