Stephen Bacon Quoted in Law360 Article on Declining Small Business Participation in Federal Procurement

Rogers Joseph O’Donnell P.C. shareholder Stephen L. Bacon was quoted in a recent Law360 analysis article on the impact of new federal strategies to help boost access to government contracts for small businesses. 

The article, “Staff Squeeze May Be Limiting Small Biz Roles in Procurement,” compares a new White House report on the use of “innovative techniques and technologies” recently introduced by the federal government, to statistics from the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) data hub on procurement. The White House report concluded that the changes lowered barriers to entry and increased competition opportunities for small businesses. However, when Law360 looked at the SBA’s data, it revealed small business participation in federal contracting has been on a steady decline for years. 

Bacon told Law360 that one reason this may be happening is that agencies are ignoring some techniques outlined in the White House report, such as using technical demonstration projects instead of traditional contract proposals. He said this is likely due to a perceived risk of inviting bid protests if an agency has in some way not been clear in what it asks contractors to demonstrate. 

“That can create novel issues around ‘was the agency really at fault here because they provided instructions for the demonstration that were in error?’” he said.