April 17 (Bloomberg) -- Small companies are winning a record share of business under the U.S. government¹s fastest- growing class of contracts.

The BGOV Barometer shows small businesses, generally those with less $7 million in annual revenue, received 24 percent of the $83.2 billion the government spent last year on so-called multiple-award contracts. That compares with 18 percent of $40.9 billion in fiscal 2006, according to the data compiled by Bloomberg. In total dollars, small-company contract revenue more than doubled in the five years to $19.7 billion from $7.38 billion.

Opportunities for small businesses have expanded as the federal government has more than doubled its spending on multiple-award contracts since 2006. The government favors such deals, under which many suppliers are picked in advance to compete against each other for orders, because they are faster and easier to administer than proceeding one contract at a time.

³Multiple-award contracts are a natural for small businesses,² said Dan Jacobs, chief executive officer of The Federal Market Group, a Warrenton, Virginia-based consulting company. ³They¹re quicker, they¹re more agile.²

The companies have succeeded with multiple-award deals even as the government has missed its goal of directing at least 23 percent of all prime, or direct, contract revenue to small businesses.

Federal agencies have failed to meet that target each year for at least the past decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. They awarded 21.8 percent of prime contracts to small businesses in fiscal 2011.

Small Business Ranks

The revenue from multiple-award contracts isn¹t being spread evenly among the ranks of small businesses.

In fiscal 2011, the top 10 percent of small companies received $14 billion under the contracts, or 71 percent of the total awarded to small firms, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In fiscal 2006, by comparison, the top 10 percent received $4.97 billion, or 67 percent.

The number of small companies winning work under multiple- award contracts declined to 2,680 last fiscal year, from 2,733 the prior year, for the first year-over-year decline since at least 2007.

This analysis of small businesses¹ multiple-award agreements excluded ³schedule² contracts for basic supplies and services operated by the General Services Administration and the Veterans Administration. Spending on those contracts hasn¹t increased as quickly as spending on the non-schedule multiple- award contracts.

One issue is that some companies are being counted as small even though they¹ve been acquired by large firms, said Brian Reeder, a spokesman for the American Small Business League in Petaluma, California. That skews the data, he said.

A study by his organization found that of the top 100 contractors winning small business awards in fiscal 2011, 72 were large companies.

Mike Stamler, a spokesman for the U.S. Small Business Administration, declined to comment.