“Agencies are increasingly consolidating contracts and adopting the use of category management, which has become ‘one of the top contributors to the shrinking number of small businesses in the federal market,’ according to Elizabeth Sullivan, president of Madison Services Group. Sullivan told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that Congress should work to counteract category management practices by streamlining governmentwide requirements for small business programs and eliminating rulemaking discrepancies that she said were causing confusion among companies and federal agencies. Recent Government Accountability Office reports have shown a major drop in small businesses supplying goods to the federal government, including one report which indicated a 17% decline between 2016 and 2019...” “The Department of Homeland Security has used its Acquisitions Professional Career Program to recruit and hire top acquisition talent across the public and private sectors, and also built out a mentorship program for procurement personnel. Soraya Correa, who previously served as chief procurement officer for DHS until last year and created both programs, detailed a range of issues around hiring procurement professionals in the federal government, from poaching to a lack of ‘common language’ used to describe the profession. Correa said that, by promoting the use of a common language for the procurement profession, Congress can help make acquisition careers ‘more transferable between government and industry,’ as well as make it easier for academic institutions ‘to offer degree programs and for individuals to understand and appreciate the profession.’...” Read the full article here. Source: Acquisition experts ask Congress to address decline in small business awards – By Chris Riotta, May 12, 2022. FCW.