March 9, 2009 -
According to last week's New York Times article "
Obama to Change Contract Awarding",
President Obama says he intends to do away with no-bid contracts that
have cost billions and led to corruption investigations. This is one of
many changes that Obama highlighted during the election and since his
inauguration with ethics being the central point to the message.
Interestingly, many of the cabinet nominees have had their own ethics
issues to address during the nomination process.
The changes
that Obama highlights coincide with already instigated ethics programs
in the federal government contractor world. The federal acquisition
regulations (FAR) have added ethics program requirements to address
contractor fraud. For years, having an ethics program was best
practice. Now, Far 3.10 requires many government contractors to have an
ethics policy, program, and training in place. We're seeing increased
ethics hotline and training interest among government contractors and
see many legal and accounting firms adding Far 3.10 programs addressing
this area.
Coming on the heels of these events, the Department of the Interior is hosting the
Senior Executive Service Forum on Ethics (March 18) led by Jacob Blass from Ethical Advocate.
This forum focuses on the "complexities of ethical decision making and
starts defining the steps necessary for its sustenance." With so much
effort going into improving federal government ethics and so many
federal government ethics issues (ironies?) in the news, this promises
to be an interesting event...