GSA gives contracting officers more discretion under RFO
The operational test is whether training and shared guidance can keep judgment from turning into uneven procurement records.
TL;DR
GSA’s Nick West told Federal News Network the agency is using training, AI tools and the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul’s FAR Companion to reduce contracting officers’ paperwork load and clarify what is required versus discretionary. Contracting officers gain room to plan, engage industry and document judgment. The obvious tension is consistency: discretion helps only if new hires and reviewers can see the same reasoning trail.
GSA is framing the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul as a workforce change as much as a rule change. Nick West, director of GSA’s Office of Acquisition Policy, Integrity and Workforce, told Federal News Network that contracting officers spend too much time navigating process and not enough time on acquisition planning, industry engagement and mission outcomes. The agency’s answer is a mix of training, AI-assisted document work and the FAR Companion, which West described as a consolidated source of practical guidance across planning, award, management and closeout.
That is the useful version of acquisition reform: reduce the time spent finding scattered instructions, then make the contracting officer’s judgment explicit. West said the overhaul is meant to clarify what is required and what is discretionary. GSA’s own public description of the RFO makes the same basic point, saying procedural guardrails are giving way to principles-based decision-making and that acquisition teams will need retraining, mentorship and phased implementation (https://www.gsa.gov/blog/2025/06/16/part-2-the-path-forward-navigating-the-new-far-landscape).
For practitioners, the issue is not whether discretion is good in the abstract. It is whether the file tells a coherent story when a supervisor, protest forum or oversight office reads it later. West acknowledged the role of tools, communities of practice, use cases and lessons learned in giving contracting officers more context. That is where the reform either becomes operational or stays aspirational. A contracting officer with clearer guidance and better drafting tools can move faster. A contracting officer with unclear local practice and a thin record has just been handed more room to be second-guessed.
Published ·Deep Fathom