To increase the Commonwealth’s overall discretionary spending with certified SWaM firms, The Department of Small Business and Supplier Diversity (DSBSD) created a new division, Sourcing and Compliance (SAC). The SAC division is primarily responsible for developing and implementing a robust procurement enhancement program aimed at increasing participation of SWaM businesses in Virginia procurement.
A disparity study commissioned by DSBSD revealed that for the last decade approximately 2.82 percent of total state contracts have been awarded to small, women-owned and minority-owned (SWaM) businesses. To assist in addressing the disparity in public procurement and contracting that adversely affect Virginia’s SWaM certified businesses:
- DSBSD’s Sourcing and Compliance Division will collaborate with the Department of General Services, the Virginia Information Technologies Agency, the Virginia Department of Transportation, and other executive branch agencies as well as higher education institutions to meet the procurement goals.
- Sourcing and Compliance will engage in data collection and analysis to assess whether the Commonwealth achieves its statewide procurement goals in a given year, and if the Commonwealth falls short, to help ensure it is better positioned to meet the goals the following year.
- Sourcing and Compliance will assist in the development and implementation a comprehensive procurement enhancement plan to establish procurement contracting goals and measures for good faith efforts of prime contractors in the utilization of SWaM certified businesses on large dollar procurement contracts.
- Sourcing and Compliance will also develop and facilitate inclusion in procurement trainings, engage in data collection, tracking and analysis to assess performance goals and participation of SWaM firms in procurement and contracting.
