GSA REPORTEDLY CONSIDERING REDUCTION IN MAS CONTRACT CLAUSES

Two GSA officials have told Allen Federal recently that work is underway inside the agency to reduce the number of contract clauses in GSA Schedule contracts.  The intent is to make it easier to award, manage, and comply with such contracts.   No specific clauses have been mentioned as targets.  Neither has the agency yet requested input from industry on what clauses they might like to see eliminated.  Contractors are expected to have an opportunity to comment on whatever list of recommended eliminations GSA devises.  A number of contract clauses are internal to the agency and have never gone through the regulatory comment period.  Others were never intended to apply to commercial item and service contracts.  Streamlined Schedules could make it the program more attractive to new market entries and potentially encourage existing contractors to add items to their contracts that are not currently included due to management or compliance concerns.  It should be noted that the GSA Office of the Inspector General will also very likely have the ability to comment as well.  As such, we’re not talking about getting rid of everything.  Still, contractors may want to develop their own lists of burdensome or obsolete clauses for GSA to consider