Procurement Progress Propels Partnerships

The Homeland Security Industries Association (HSIA) has told Congress that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has made significant progress in organizing its procurement process and has offered some constructive recommendations for the future of the Technical Support Working Group (TSWG). TSWG is the U.S. national forum to identify, prioritize, and coordinate interagency and international research and development (R&D) requirements for combating terrorism.

Testifying before the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations of the House Committee on Government Reforms, HSIA Chairman Bruce Grazia said that his association believes that DHS “has moved quickly to implement Homeland security improvements,” yet, “HSIA members and other companies of the Homeland security industry, not to mention first responders and their state and local governments, are frustrated with the pace of Homeland security funding and the early reliance on sole source procurements.”

Included in HSIA’s recommendations:

• TSWG’s dedicated Web site for its procurements should be more clearly linked to the DHS website;

• DHS should organize a series of seminars, and greater use should be made of the Small Business Administration’s offices around the country in educating about TSWG;

• Congress should appropriate additional funding for TSWG in order to permit it to conduct debriefing meetings with firms who have unsuccessfully sent equipment or technology to TSWG, and also to implement a debriefing system with respect to unsolicited equipment or technology sent to TSWG;

• The incidence of federal and state Homeland security sole source contracting should decrease;

• The administration should consider an inter-agency Homeland security contracting summit, further to the goal of creating a “harmonized” Homeland security procurement system;

• Congress should authorize, and the administration should implement, a system of “security-cleared” industry advisors from each major area of Homeland security;

• DHS should conduct more frequent “Industry Days” to educate industry regarding DHS goals and plans regarding HLS procurement; and

• DHS should attempt to collect state and local Homeland security procurement information and post it on the dedicated Homeland security Web site recommended above.