Small Business: SBA Cannot Assess the Success of Its Minority Business
Development Program (Testimony, 07/27/94, GAO/T-RCED-94-278).

Although the Small Business Administration (SBA) has improved some
aspects of its 8(a) business development program, which provides federal
contracts to small businesses owned by social and economically
disadvantaged persons, SBA is still not in a position to evaluate the
program's overall success in enabling minority businesses to compete in
the commercial marketplace after they leave the program. The value of
8(a) contracts awarded competitively during fiscal year 1992 was higher
than the value of contracts awarded during the preceding year, but the
distribution of contracts continued to be concentrated among a very
small percentage of firms. Also, SBA could not say whether its revised
business plans for 8(a) firms are being reviewed annually, as required
by law, or whether the firms are meeting the non-8(a) contract goals to
reduce the firms' reliance on program contracts. Finally, the
information SBA provided GAO shows that its failure to properly plan the
redesign of the program's management information system continues to
hamper the implementation of a system of providing SBA managers with
basic 8(a) program information.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  T-RCED-94-278
     TITLE:  Small Business: SBA Cannot Assess the Success of Its 
             Minority Business Development Program
      DATE:  07/27/94
   SUBJECT:  Small business assistance
             Small business contractors
             Minority business contracts
             Management information systems
             Minority business assistance
             Competitive procurement
             Federal procurement
             Program evaluation
             Strategic information systems planning
             Systems design
IDENTIFIER:  SBA 8(a) Program
             SBA 8(a) Program Certification Tracking System
             SBA 8(a) Program Servicing and Contracting System
             SBA 8(a) Program Management and Technical Assistance System
             SBA Central Office Repository System
             
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