The Small Business Administration gave the government as a whole a “B” on its 2011 Fiscal Year Small Business Procurement Scorecard.
However, the federal government did fall short of its goal to award 23 percent of contract to small business. It’s the sixth straight year the government has failed to do so.
The government also fell short of goals for women-owned, service disabled-owned and Historically Underutilized Business Zone programs, with the amount of overall contracting dollars going to small firms dropped by more than $6 billion in 2011 as compared to 2010. Agencies awarded $91.5 billion to small businesses in 2011 as compared to $97.95 billion the year before.
The report, which you can read below, also gave out grades to individual agencies. Of them, 15 agencies received an “A” grade, five agencies received a “B” grade, three agencies received a “C” grade and one an F. No agencies received a “D.”
The Department of Energy received the only failing grade, missing its goals in every category, falling under one percent of all contracts to women, service disabled-owned and HUBZone small businesses.
“The FY2011 Small Business Procurement Scorecard reflects the need for improvement in small business procurement across the federal government,” said John Shoraka, SBA’s associate administrator for government contracting and business development. “Over the last year, SBA has increased its efforts and collaboration with our federal agency partners to provide more opportunities for small business to compete for and win federal contracts, but we know more must be done to ensure that more contracts get into the hands of small businesses.”
