In recent months the Department of Veterans Affairs has been challenged for its failure to use Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Busines and Veteran Owned Small Businesses set-asides as authorized by the Veterans First Program, 38 U.S.C. 8127. The Veterans First Program is a unique "Veterans First" approach specific to VA contracting. This approach changes the small business hierarchy within the VA by placing service-disabled Veteran-owned small businesses ("SDVOSB") and Veteran-owned small businesses ("VOSB") first and second, respectively, in satisfying VA's acquisition requirements.
The VA has been slow to use the authority granted to it to increase set-asides for SDVOSB and VOSB concernes. This has led to several legal challenges to the VA's failure to use the set-asides and instead use unrestricted competition or sources listed in FAR Part 8. These latter sources have been the Ability One (NISH) program and GSA's Federal Supply Schedule.
There have been several developments in this area and I will report on them in the next few days.
