The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has announced in a new memo that its phasing out some guidelines from its Federal Acquisition Certification in Contracting (FAC-C) rules in an effort to streamline training and certification efforts for Federal contracting professionals.
The new guidelines titled FAC-C (Professional) will focus on helping train and develop contracting professional “that reflects best practices in modern learning, training agility, and continuous professional growth,” OMB said.
The new guidelines also look at wrapping in people from “colleges, industry, internal candidates from other functions, and state and local governments.”
The new program will focus on the following key areas.
- Single-Level Certification;
- Virtual instructor-led learning;
- Curated learning in the form of credentials;
- Agency responsibility in development of their contracting professionals;
- ANSI-accredited competencies; and
- Exams and Testing.
As part of the new policies, new hires will have a year to complete a four-section course, while those current employees with Levels I, II and III certification will be given a single FAC-C (Professional) certification.
The OMB update takes insight from the Acquisition Officers Council (CAOC), the Federal Acquisition Institute (FAI), and the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) to meet the goals of modern contracting needs.
“The new contracting competency model is based on an American National Standard approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and represents foundational competencies that are independent of an individual’s organization or mission area,” the memo states.
The new policies will go into effect on Feb 1.
