September 2017 - page 4

We’ve been discussing the Section 809 Panel and everyone’s hope that it brings significant reforms to the acquisition process. Ultimately, many of the recommended reforms are going to require legislative action to implement so this isn’t something that will happen overnight. Also, we don’t know how many sacred cows that might be sacrificed bringing real reform into the process so we’ll just have to wait and see how it all develops.

Source: PNWC’s Government Contracting Update: Progress Report on Other Procurement Reform Initiatives

For the past couple of days, we’ve been discussing the activities of the Section 809 Panel (refer to Update on Section 809 Panel). Ultimately, the Panel will be “making recommendations, including actionable changes to regulatory and statutory language, to improve the acquisition process within DoD.” For the purposes of the panel, regulations include not only regulations, but executive orders, directives, policies, and procedures as well. The Panel’s goal is to take a comprehensive approach to weeding out regulatory and statutory underbrush that gets in the way of the DoD mission and to recommend entirely new pathways for approaching defense acquisition that promotes innovation, agility, and speed across the whole range of goods and services.

Source: PNWC’s Government Contracting Update: Section 809 Panel and Texting While Driving