7 ms·

I agree, it is better to have the government do their own websites rather than go outside. The only thing is the allegations seem to be that 18F is helping gov

by vivekd 10y ago

I agree, it is better to have the government do their own websites rather than go outside. The only thing is the allegations seem to be that 18F is helping government agencies draft up procurement contracts and then bidding on the same contracts it helped draft. The article says that 18F is alleged to be: > acting as both a procurement policymaker and as a tech competitor This seems like a severe conflict of interest in which they would write procurement contracts favoring themselves. I would be okay with it if they just made 18F the site builder and didn't have them compete with private companies on tender, but if the allegations are to be believed, that doesn't seem to be the case, it seems like 18F is a federal agency bidding against private contracts.

mockt 10y ago
I think it makes perfect since to have an internal team that can help flesh out the details of a project and give an estimate of cost to develop in house. Not a conflict at all.
Already__Taken 10y ago
Isn't this the classic trap? Who best make baking regulations than top bankers. Who best to legislate oil then the oil industry. Who's best at defining technical procurement than your technical team? Has there ever bean a great answer to this? Is it a conflict of interest or an area of domain expertise.
- guptaneil 10y ago
  Your comparison is incorrect. The first 2 examples are external industries while the third is an internal agency. A better question would be "Who's best at defining technical procurement than industry giants like IBM?" The answers are that the SEC and the Fed are best for making banking regulations. The EPA is best for regulating the oil industry. And 18F is best for regulating the tech procurement process.
pns 10y ago
Is that really any different than any company's IT department figuring out what needs to get done and then, afterwards, deciding whether to insource or outsource the work? If the "conflict of interest" biases taxpayers - awesome. Government procurement is supposed to be 100% bias towards helping taxpayers.
- mooreds 10y ago
  The difference is that with a normal company you can't hire a lobbyist to affect the outcome.
  - navait 10y ago
    Not a lobbyist exactly, but I've seen more than a few contracts given to the golf buddies of senior management. You can definitely rig the corporate IT game.
    - bsimpson 10y ago
      > more than a few contracts given to the golf buddies When people talk about access to high-paying jobs and powerful positions being biased towards upper-middle class whites and Asians, this is usually what they mean (though not for the reasons you may presume). For most choices, there's a threshold above which the remaining choices are effectively equal. If you have a myriad of options that are all competent enough to do the job and in the same price range, how do you go about choosing one? At a certain point, the act making a choice and moving forward is more import than which one you chose. There may be 10,000 shops qualified to create whatever it is you need. If you happen to know and trust one of them, and the price range is within budget, why bother investigating the other options? The time investment required would be huge, but the payoff wouldn't be very high. Of course, overstating your needs and/or your budget to benefit someone you know is wrong - it's corruption. But, there's a very similar outcome that's a natural extension of human behavior. It's not detrimental to the parties involved, but may be to the diversity of society as a whole. All else being equal, of course you're going to choose someone you trust, and your friends are probably some of the people you trust most. Since you typically meet your friends while living your everyday life, they're probably people you have a lot in common with - people who had access to the same schools, jobs, and neighborhoods you did. At first blush, if you need something done and there's a qualified friend who can help you, there's nothing wrong with that. However, after enough iterations of powerful people hiring their friends, we may end up with something resembling an aristocracy - a bunch of powerful friends always hiring each other, and another bunch of non-powerful people who can't get their feet-in-the-door.
dalerus 10y ago
Huge potential conflict here unless the 18F consulting team that drafts the requirement is firewalled away from the bidding team. I think once they clarify this, it would be all good.
- zacharycohn 10y ago
  This doesn't happen. Not really sure where the source claim comes from, but we don't respond to RFPs *i work at 18F.
  - dalerus 10y ago
    Good to hear. I figured as much.
- andrewl 10y ago
  Dalerus, as Zacharycohn says, the 18F group doesn't respond to RFPs. But I personally don't see that it would be a conflict of interest if they were allowed to respond. I could see a conflict of interest if the 18F group was a private company employed by the government and allowed to both draft requirements and bid on contracts. I wouldn't want to see Microsoft drafting requirements and bidding on them. But 18F is part of the government. Consider this scenario: The 18F team works with the Secretary of the Interior's office to draft requirements for a system needed by the Department of the Interior. They gather the requirements and conclude "This isn't a huge system. We can do this ourselves." Do the individuals working at 18F get raises or massive bonuses for doing the work, or do they continue to receive the same civil service graded salary they've always been receiving? It is certainly in the 18F department's interest to have work and continue to exist, but I don't see any huge payoff to the head of 18F the way there would be if a large company got a contract. Or, to sort of repeat a scenario I offered earlier in this conversation, my wife wants our bathroom remodeled. I interview her and find out what she wants and write it all down. I go over it with a few companies that do bathroom remodeling. I receive their bids. I conclude that I'm capable of doing the work myself more quickly and more cheaply. I award the "contract" to myself. Where's the conflict of interest?
  - 10y ago
Spooky23 10y ago
The Federal government is a single legal entity. How can it be possible for an entity to have a conflict of interest in deciding to do something itself?
- mooreds 10y ago
  Are you sure the Federal government is a single legal entity? If so, how can Congress sue the President? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_v._Burwell https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Repre...
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    The congress is a seperate branch of government.
    - mooreds 10y ago
      Ah, so you meant the executive branch is a single legal entity.
zacharycohn 10y ago
As a government organization, not a private company, we can't respond to RFPs. No one is really sure where this claim that we help write and then respond to rfps comes from, but it's not true. *I work for 18F.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  My guess is that the folks bitching about you guys are extrapolating from the "standards" that 18f produces, and spinning that into the RFP thing. Contractors hate standards, because they scope what they can sell. If you make a simple statement like "use Git for source control", the vendors want to be able to contest that decision, or have the decision made in some sort of "open" form where they get to lobby for some other standard.
brazzledazzle 10y ago
It seems completely alien to me that a portion of the Federal government drafting and bidding on Federal contracts for another part could be seen as engaging in an unethical conflict of interest. Would anyone make the same claim if a department in GE was competing against IBM on a GE project said department helped spec out?

by vivekd 10y ago

mockt 10y ago

I think it makes perfect since to have an internal team that can help flesh out the details of a project and give an estimate of cost to develop in house. Not a conflict at all.

Already__Taken 10y ago

Isn't this the classic trap? Who best make baking regulations than top bankers. Who best to legislate oil then the oil industry. Who's best at defining technical procurement than your technical team? Has there ever bean a great answer to this? Is it a conflict of interest or an area of domain expertise.

guptaneil 10y ago
Your comparison is incorrect. The first 2 examples are external industries while the third is an internal agency. A better question would be "Who's best at defining technical procurement than industry giants like IBM?" The answers are that the SEC and the Fed are best for making banking regulations. The EPA is best for regulating the oil industry. And 18F is best for regulating the tech procurement process.

pns 10y ago

Is that really any different than any company's IT department figuring out what needs to get done and then, afterwards, deciding whether to insource or outsource the work? If the "conflict of interest" biases taxpayers - awesome. Government procurement is supposed to be 100% bias towards helping taxpayers.

mooreds 10y ago
The difference is that with a normal company you can't hire a lobbyist to affect the outcome.
- navait 10y ago
  Not a lobbyist exactly, but I've seen more than a few contracts given to the golf buddies of senior management. You can definitely rig the corporate IT game.
  - bsimpson 10y ago
    > more than a few contracts given to the golf buddies When people talk about access to high-paying jobs and powerful positions being biased towards upper-middle class whites and Asians, this is usually what they mean (though not for the reasons you may presume). For most choices, there's a threshold above which the remaining choices are effectively equal. If you have a myriad of options that are all competent enough to do the job and in the same price range, how do you go about choosing one? At a certain point, the act making a choice and moving forward is more import than which one you chose. There may be 10,000 shops qualified to create whatever it is you need. If you happen to know and trust one of them, and the price range is within budget, why bother investigating the other options? The time investment required would be huge, but the payoff wouldn't be very high. Of course, overstating your needs and/or your budget to benefit someone you know is wrong - it's corruption. But, there's a very similar outcome that's a natural extension of human behavior. It's not detrimental to the parties involved, but may be to the diversity of society as a whole. All else being equal, of course you're going to choose someone you trust, and your friends are probably some of the people you trust most. Since you typically meet your friends while living your everyday life, they're probably people you have a lot in common with - people who had access to the same schools, jobs, and neighborhoods you did. At first blush, if you need something done and there's a qualified friend who can help you, there's nothing wrong with that. However, after enough iterations of powerful people hiring their friends, we may end up with something resembling an aristocracy - a bunch of powerful friends always hiring each other, and another bunch of non-powerful people who can't get their feet-in-the-door.

dalerus 10y ago

Huge potential conflict here unless the 18F consulting team that drafts the requirement is firewalled away from the bidding team. I think once they clarify this, it would be all good.

zacharycohn 10y ago
This doesn't happen. Not really sure where the source claim comes from, but we don't respond to RFPs *i work at 18F.
- dalerus 10y ago
  Good to hear. I figured as much.
andrewl 10y ago
Dalerus, as Zacharycohn says, the 18F group doesn't respond to RFPs. But I personally don't see that it would be a conflict of interest if they were allowed to respond. I could see a conflict of interest if the 18F group was a private company employed by the government and allowed to both draft requirements and bid on contracts. I wouldn't want to see Microsoft drafting requirements and bidding on them. But 18F is part of the government. Consider this scenario: The 18F team works with the Secretary of the Interior's office to draft requirements for a system needed by the Department of the Interior. They gather the requirements and conclude "This isn't a huge system. We can do this ourselves." Do the individuals working at 18F get raises or massive bonuses for doing the work, or do they continue to receive the same civil service graded salary they've always been receiving? It is certainly in the 18F department's interest to have work and continue to exist, but I don't see any huge payoff to the head of 18F the way there would be if a large company got a contract. Or, to sort of repeat a scenario I offered earlier in this conversation, my wife wants our bathroom remodeled. I interview her and find out what she wants and write it all down. I go over it with a few companies that do bathroom remodeling. I receive their bids. I conclude that I'm capable of doing the work myself more quickly and more cheaply. I award the "contract" to myself. Where's the conflict of interest?
- 10y ago

Spooky23 10y ago

The Federal government is a single legal entity. How can it be possible for an entity to have a conflict of interest in deciding to do something itself?

mooreds 10y ago
Are you sure the Federal government is a single legal entity? If so, how can Congress sue the President? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_v._Burwell https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Repre...
- Spooky23 10y ago
  The congress is a seperate branch of government.
  - mooreds 10y ago
    Ah, so you meant the executive branch is a single legal entity.

zacharycohn 10y ago

As a government organization, not a private company, we can't respond to RFPs. No one is really sure where this claim that we help write and then respond to rfps comes from, but it's not true. *I work for 18F.

Spooky23 10y ago
My guess is that the folks bitching about you guys are extrapolating from the "standards" that 18f produces, and spinning that into the RFP thing. Contractors hate standards, because they scope what they can sell. If you make a simple statement like "use Git for source control", the vendors want to be able to contest that decision, or have the decision made in some sort of "open" form where they get to lobby for some other standard.

brazzledazzle 10y ago

It seems completely alien to me that a portion of the Federal government drafting and bidding on Federal contracts for another part could be seen as engaging in an unethical conflict of interest. Would anyone make the same claim if a department in GE was competing against IBM on a GE project said department helped spec out?