Feral Jundi

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Industry Talk: Legislation Would Federalize Private Guards Who Protect US Government Buildings

Filed under: Government Work,Industry Talk,Legal News — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Matt @ 1:43 AM

“Again, it’s because you can fire a bad contractor, but you can’t fire the government. I think TSA stands for Thousands Standing Around.” -John Stossel

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     Interesting move, but I have this picture in my head of TSA-like guards standing post at these buildings. Whatever forces that cause TSA folks to do a poor job, will also impact these federalized private guards. A lack of leadership, a lack of funding, a lack of motivation to do well, and a feeling of being part of a government machine that has numerous loopholes that allow bad employees to continue working.

     It would not surprise me if this move will cost more as well.  With federal employees, you have a lot of benefits the government has to pay for.  I would love for these guys to get good pay, and great benefits, but if these legislators start going over the cost of such a thing, I think they might get some sticker shock. Especially when they look at the retirement costs or medical insurance costs.

     Politically speaking, this has all the trappings of government just trying to get bigger.  Candidates who are running on anti-big government platforms will have plenty of ammunition if this type of stuff passes.  Especially if it costs more than what is currently going on and if the unions are involved.

     Now I do like the ‘nationwide training and certification standards for private guards’ concept.  That makes sense, and it also makes sense to ‘hire contract oversight staffers to monitor the firms employing private guards’.  Both of those actions will pay real dividends. But I would still like to see private industry do this stuff, because once government takes it over it just seems to get even worse. –Matt

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Legislation would federalize private guards who protect U.S. government buildings

By Ed O’KeefeTuesday, September 14, 2010

Private security guards protecting the nation’s federal buildings might one day earn a government paycheck and could face new national training and certification standards if legislation introduced Monday advances in the coming months.

The proposals unveiled by members of the House Homeland Security Committee come more than a year after government auditors embarrassed the beleaguered Federal Protective Service by penetrating 10 major federal facilities with materials to construct a bomb. The FPS provides security for about 1.5 million federal workers at 9,000 federal facilities with a mix of about 800 full-time federal inspectors and 15,000 private security guards.

The legislation would require the FPS to hire 550 new federal inspectors, a figure that is “really not enough,” but all that the agency can handle right now, said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.). The new hires should help the agency move toward federalizing most, if not all, of its private guards, she said.

(more…)

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Afghanistan: Canadian General Says Afghanistan To Regulate Private Security

Filed under: Afghanistan,Canada,Industry Talk — Tags: , , , , , , — Matt @ 1:58 PM

     I love this kind of stuff, because it is a prime example of the types of market forces that not only drive places like Afghanistan, but throughout the world.  My thoughts on the matter is that if the police paid more than PSC’s and the Taliban, then more than likely, they will retain their officers.  But that would take the government of Afghanistan actually coughing up that kind of dough, or I mean, the Coalition, and actually putting their money where their mouth is.

   The other factor is free will.  Men and women who are in this business throughout the world, all have families to feed, bills to pay and dreams to fulfill.  You cannot tell a person in this industry, to work a job that pays them less than what they are worth, and especially if there is work that pays more or offers better benefits.

   This is also about choice, and maybe working for a PSC is more convenient for these guys, as opposed to the military or police. Or they don’t trust the government or maybe they don’t like being cops. The other one could be time, and maybe the police force really doesn’t have a flexible enough schedule for these guys. Everyone has their reasons. –Matt

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Afghanistan to regulate private security: Canadian general

By Steve Rennie

25th January 2010

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The greener pastures of private-security firms lure away many an Afghan cop with the promise of bigger paycheques and relatively safer work.

But now the Afghan government is drawing up new rules for private companies as it tries to stop police from leaving the force.

Canada’s highest-ranking soldier in Afghanistan says the regulations will help put the country’s police force on an even playing field with security companies.

“I don’t think anybody wants to limit anybody’s ability to choose their own destiny,” Maj.-Gen. Michael Ward, deputy commander of NATO forces training the Afghan police, said Monday.

“But when AWOL and desertion are such a big problem in the security forces, then you don’t actually want to be stimulating it by letting the competition hire them away.”

(more…)

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Industry Talk: The Cost Of Compliance Is About To Increase

Filed under: Industry Talk — Tags: , , , , , , — Matt @ 7:02 AM

   Excellent.  The government/customer has every right in the world to demand accountability from the people they are contracting with.  This is like a large scale version of my Three Strikes Principle.  First you give them a warning to clean up their act, then if they don’t do that, then take a days pay or fine them, and if they still can’t get it right, then fire them.  Just pull the trigger and end the contract, because obviously the company could care less about providing a quality service. If the government does not have the courage to at least exercise their right as the customer in this deal, then of course they are going to continue to get screwed over. It’s the tax payer’s money you are playing with, the least you can do is actually care that it is wisely spent. –Matt

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The Cost of Compliance is About to Increase

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

The Defense Department has proposed a new regulation that they say is designed to improve the effectiveness of DoD oversight of contractor business systems – Defense is going to withhold funds on cost reimbursable (and other flexibly priced) contracts until contractors fix their inadequate business systems. The withholds begins at 10 percent and could go as high as 100 percent under certain circumstances (though the higher figure seems highly unlikely). Withholds affect cash flow and disrupting cash flow will certainly get contractors’ attention.

Over the next few days, we will provide analysis and comment on what this regulation portends for Defense contractors. To state that it will represent a very significant change in the way the Government does business is a huge understatement.

Currently, contractors bear no direct consequences for inadequate business systems. When deficiencies are identified, contractors are allowed time to fix those deficiencies. There is no perscribed timetable for effecting corrections nor does the Government withhold any billings until changes are made. After corrective actions are implemented, the Government (usually the auditor) has no prescribed timeframe for determining whether the actions have been effective in correcting the deficiencies. Many times, these deficiencies are “on the books” for years without any permanent resolution. Under the proposed regulations, there are very tight timetables for implementing corrective actions.

The propsed regulations set forth certain criteria for adequate business systems. Some are very objective while others are highly subjective. For example, there are 17 criteria for an adequate accounting system. One criteria is the system must be capable of segregating preproduction costs from production costs. This functionality is built in to most moden accounting software and is easy ot audit. It is basically a yes/no answer. However, other requirements are very subjective. One such subjective requirement is the contractor must conduct periodic monitoring of the system, as appropriate. What does that mean? How often is “periodic”? What is entailed in the term “monitoring”? What does the term “as appropriate” mean? These are very subjective elements and contractors are going to experience the vagaries of auditor judgement when the auditors come in to test for compliance with this standard.

The ten business systems covered by this new regulation include

• Accounting systems

• Estimating systems

• Purchasing systems

• Earned Value Management Systems (EVMS)

• Material Management and Accounting Systems (MMAS)

• Property management systems (Government property held by contractors)

Story here.

Full text of new regulations here.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Publications: IG Says SBInet Has Too Many Contractors

Filed under: Publications,Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Matt @ 9:17 PM

     Now I read through the report, and there was no mention of EODT using armed guards to protect the building of these sites, so that was not the ‘inherently governmental’ portion they were talking about.  They were talking about the contractors doing the job of upper level management of CBP, which to me is a no-brainer–no duh that is inherently governmental.  It’s also inherently lazy on the part of the CBP to not draft their own reports for congress to read.

(more…)

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Israel: Majority of Israelis Want to Outsource Military Non-combat Services

Filed under: Industry Talk,Israel — Tags: , , , — Matt @ 9:54 PM

   This is interesting, just for the sake of seeing how Israel would set up a model for government contracting.  They now have the luxury of learning from the mistakes that the US has made, and if they do go down this path, it will be interesting to see what they come up with.  It is my belief that if they do this right, and for that matter if we can get it right, the lethality and efficiency of our combat forces will only be enhanced by such efforts. –Matt

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Majority of Israelis want to outsource military’s dirty laundry

Jul. 6, 2008

Nathan Cohen , THE JERUSALEM POST

New data released last week show the majority of Israelis believe the military should export some non-combat services to private companies in ways similar to the US system.

A poll by the Dahaf polling firm showed that 60 percent of Israelis are supportive of military privatization for services like laundry, food, car repairs and maintenance, however, 87% are against outsourcing security-related services.

The Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, which commissioned the study, said it would like to see more outsourcing than the current levels, for everything from laundry services to non-combat reservist duty. JIMS operates on the belief that private enterprises are far more efficient than the same services managed by the government.

Corinne Sauer, an Economist and co-founder of JIMS, believes such handovers would allow the Israeli economy to grow.

“[The military] outsourced some health funds in the past, and the soldiers were happy…and it cost the IDF a lot less money,” she said.

(more…)

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