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Insourcing Functions Performed by Federal Contractors: An Overview of the Legal Issues

CRS: Insourcing Functions Performed by Federal Contractors: An Overview of the Legal Issues – Kate M. Manuel, Legislative Attorney; Jack Maskell, Legislative Attorney, May 7, 2012

  • “Recent Congresses and the Obama Administration have taken numerous actions to promote “insourcing,” or the use of government personnel to perform functions that contractors have performed on behalf of federal agencies. Among other things, the 109th through the 111th Congresses enacted several statutes requiring the development of policies and guidelines to ensure that agencies “consider” using government employees to perform functions previously performed by contractors, as well as any new functions. These statutes require that “special consideration” be given to using government personnel to perform those functions (1) recently performed by government employees, (2) closely associated with the performance of inherently governmental functions, (3) performed pursuant to a contract awarded on a non-competitive basis, or (4) performed poorly by a contractor because of excessive costs or inferior quality. The Obama Administration has similarly promoted insourcing. For example, in February 2010, the Secretary of the Army testified that the Army intended to insource 7,162 positions in FY2010 and 11,084 positions in FY2011 through FY2015. Although the Department of Defense (DOD) subsequently abandoned such insourcing initiatives because the initiatives did not result in significant savings, several contractors filed suit alleging that DOD failed to comply with the applicable guidelines when insourcing particular functions.”
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