Public agencies often use "disparity studies" to evaluate whether minority- and women-owned businesses (MBEs/WBEs) are getting less government work than other similar businesses.
Not only do such studies help evaluate programs designed to help MBEs/WBEs, but establishing past or existing discrimination (by a government entity or otherwise) is a key part of the legal foundation to justify programs that take race and/or gender into account in the award of public contracts.
How Disparity Studies Work: Disparity studies generally analyze whether there is a disparity between the availability of MBEs/WBEs in the market and how much they are actually being utilized. This is done by analyzing the value of work that firms of the size, qualifications, and interests of surveyed MBEs/WBEs should expect based on availability, and comparing it to the work they actually receive. If MBEs/WBEs are getting significantly less work than other similar firms, an disparity exists.
The Portland Study: The City of Portland and the Portland Development Commission hired a team of companies to assess MBE/WBE utilization between 2004 and 2009. After analyzing almost 4,000 City contracts and surveying over 3,700 local companies, the study concluded that there was not an overall disparity between availability and utilization of MBEs/WBEs, although relatively minor disparities did exist in some areas.
More Information: For more details, see the executive summary (PDF) of the report. The main page for the disparity study also includes links to each chapter of the full report.
How Disparity Studies Work: Disparity studies generally analyze whether there is a disparity between the availability of MBEs/WBEs in the market and how much they are actually being utilized. This is done by analyzing the value of work that firms of the size, qualifications, and interests of surveyed MBEs/WBEs should expect based on availability, and comparing it to the work they actually receive. If MBEs/WBEs are getting significantly less work than other similar firms, an disparity exists.
The Portland Study: The City of Portland and the Portland Development Commission hired a team of companies to assess MBE/WBE utilization between 2004 and 2009. After analyzing almost 4,000 City contracts and surveying over 3,700 local companies, the study concluded that there was not an overall disparity between availability and utilization of MBEs/WBEs, although relatively minor disparities did exist in some areas.
More Information: For more details, see the executive summary (PDF) of the report. The main page for the disparity study also includes links to each chapter of the full report.
Mike Purdy's Public Contracting Blog© 2011 by Michael E. Purdy Associates, LLChttp://PublicContracting.blogspot.com
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment