Data Dive
These are the agencies spending the most on consulting contracts
The Department of Veterans Affairs ended 585 consulting contracts deemed non-essential, but HHS, DHS and DoD also buy a large amount of these services.
The Veterans Affairs Department lifted its pause on cancelling “non-essential” or duplicative contracts and reduced its initial number by more than 300.
VA said today it is terminating 585 contracts, down from its initial total of 875 it released last week and immediately came under fire for impacting for veterans services.
Democrat lawmakers say the initial list of cancelled contracts affected direct service to veterans for cancer care, for recruiting of doctors and for decontamination of facilities that are polluted.
This time, VA says ending these contracts will not negatively affect veteran care, benefits or services.
“The value of the contract cancellations announced today totals about $1.8 billon. After accounting for the money already spent on the contracts, the cancellations will enable VA to redirect about $900 million back toward health care, benefits and services for VA beneficiaries,” the agency said in a release. “The 585 contract cancellations announced today represent the first step in VA’s comprehensive and ongoing audit of roughly 90,000 department contracts worth more than $67 billion. VA expects to announce more changes to optimize its contracting operations in the future. Contracts will be canceled in some instances, and in other instances new contracts will be created. But ultimately, VA will be able to redirect billions of dollars toward benefits and services that directly help veterans and beneficiaries.”
VA says these contract terminations were “identified through a deliberative, multi-level review that involved the career subject-matter expert employees responsible for the contracts as well as VA senior leaders and contracting officials.”
The agency says career employees evaluated the contracts based on how closely they support veterans and beneficiaries.
“Contracts that directly support Veterans, beneficiaries or provide services VA cannot do itself, such as a nurse who sees patients or an organization that provides third-party certification services, respectively, were not canceled. Contracts that involved services VA has the ability to perform itself were typically canceled,” the agency stated.
Some experts already are questioning whether these contract cancellations will save money. An analysis of contracts that the U.S. DOGE Service terminated found that 40% will lead to no real savings.
VA’s decision to cancel 575 contracts is part of a bigger governmentwide effort led by the General Services Administration.
GSA initially asked agencies in early February to review and decide whether to cancel “non-essential consulting” contracts. It turned up the focus on this effort last week by telling agencies to specifically review 10 contractors who have at least $65 billion in contracts in 2025 and beyond.
The Defense Department also kicked off its two-phased review, starting with contracts awarded through GSA and then moving to non-GSA deals.
Other agencies are surely following the same suit so Federal News Network asked Deltek, the market research firm to run the numbers on what North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) saw the most dollars awarded and which agencies spend the most on consulting contracts.
One of the biggest governmentwide contracts for services is GSA’s OASIS. The agency has been awarding the follow-on contract, OASIS+, over the past few months, expanding the scope of the current contract.
Since 2015, agencies have awarded 4,744 task orders worth $90.7 billion, according GSA’s OASIS dashboard. In fiscal 2024 alone, OASIS saw more total sales go through it than ever before, with $11 billion on the unrestricted version and $6 billion on the small business and 8(a) versions.
These are the top agency users of OASIS based on estimated sales.
These are the top vendors who received OASIS awards based one estimated sales.
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