DPAP | The Contracting Education Academy

May 22, 2018 By AMK

DoD implements FY18 NDAA requirement for post-debriefing Q&A process

This past March marked the beginning of a more fulsome required debriefing process for defense contracts.

The Director of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (DPAP) issued a class deviation memorandum, effective March 22, 2008, requiring contracting officers to: (1) provide unsuccessful offerors an opportunity to submit additional questions within two days after receiving a debriefing; and (2) hold the debriefing open until the agency delivers written responses. The class deviation implements Section 818 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (NDAA).

Federal agencies have long been required to debrief unsuccessful bidders after it awards a contract on the “basis of a competitive proposals.” And the existing FAR provisions applicable to such debriefings, FAR 15.505 and 15.506, already require agencies to include, as part of the debriefing process, “reasonable responses to relevant questions about whether source selection procedures were followed . . . .”

In practice, however, agencies regularly ignore that requirement — often providing a limited written debriefing, declaring the debriefing closed with no opportunity for questions, and thereby putting the disappointed offeror on a 5-day clock to protest, without all the information to which it is entitled.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2018/05/questions-department-defense-implements-fy-2018-ndaa-requirement-post-debriefing-qa-process/

September 2, 2016 By AMK

DoD now awarding more than half its contract spending without competitive bids

Last week marks the two-year point since the Defense Department — worried that only 56.5 percent of its contracted dollars involved a meaningful competition between two or more vendors — issued a series of corrective actions to reverse a downward slide that’s been ongoing for nearly a decade.

So far, the results are not encouraging.

Data published by the Office of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (DPAP) shows things have gotten worse, not better since those orders were signed. In each quarter of fiscal 2016 thus far, DoD’s overall competition rate has been below 50 percent, meaning something dramatic would have to happen in the fourth quarter for the department to meet its goal of 57 percent for the year.

Competition Scorecard

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/dod-reporters-notebook-jared-serbu/2016/08/dod-now-awarding-half-contract-spending-without-competitive-bids/

February 26, 2015 By AMK

GSA Schedules and DoD’s confusing FAR 8.4 deviation

On March 13, 2014, Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (DPAP) issued a class deviation to FAR 8.404(d). This deviation directed that ordering activity contracting officers are responsible for making a determination of fair and reasonable pricing when using GSA’s Federal Supply Schedules (FSS). The deviation essentially incorporates complex FAR 15.404-1 price analysis techniques into the streamlined FSS ordering procedures with the vague caveat that the complexity and circumstances of each acquisition should determine the level of detail of the analysis required.

In discussing the rationale for this deviation, DPAP has consistently focused on the variation in pricing across the FSS program. In particular, the example of a $29 stapler listed on an FSS contract has been cited by DPAP as creating a “significant” risk that Department of Defense (DoD) contracting officers will simply order the $29 stapler rather than search for a cheaper stapler on another FSS contract. For those of us of a certain age, the use of this example reminds one of the $600 toilet seat reportedly purchased by the DoD back in the 1980s. Like the toilet seat purchase, however, there is greater context that undercuts the stapler example cited by DPAP.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/acquisition/blog/2015/02/13/gsa-advantage-dpap-far-waldron/23365305/

October 23, 2012 By AMK

Top 20 contract awards projected to be billions of dollars smaller in 2013

Agencies are expected to open markedly smaller contracts for competition in the coming year, a new market analysis shows.

The top 20 contracts anticipated for fiscal 2013 represent about $92 billion, a 38 percent decrease from the total value of last year’s top 20, which totaled $148.5 billion, according to a report by Deltek market researchers released Wednesday.

For example, the smallest contract included on Deltek’s top 20 list last year was the Defense Department’s contract, to research threats involving weapons of mass destruction, worth $2 billion. This year, the smallest contract, for health marketing communication services at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has an estimated value of $870 million.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20121010/ACQUISITION03/310100004.

October 22, 2012 By AMK

Pentagon not properly monitoring sole-source contracts, audit finds

The Defense Department is inadequately following guidance on single-bid contracts and failing to encourage the type of competition that saves taxpayer dollars, the inspector general’s office found in a recent audit.

In a review of 107 contracts valued at nearly $1.4 billion, along with another half-billion dollars’ worth of contract modifications, the IG determined that the military’s competition advocates failed to follow single-bid guidance in 31 cases. The Pentagon also neglected to “develop adequate plans to increase competition because Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (DPAP) did not provide effective oversight of the plans,” the report said. And Defense officials did not develop specific steps to improve competition rates in their plans or “develop specific steps to prevent 39 of 47 contract modifications, valued at $390.9 million, from exceeding the three-year limitation on awarding contract modifications without first recompeting.”

The IG recommended improved monitoring and creation of an overall schedule on altering contracts. The service largely agreed.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2012/10/pentagon-not-properly-monitoring-sole-source-contracts-audit-finds/58819/?oref=national_defense_nl.

This past March marked the beginning of a more fulsome required debriefing process for defense contracts.

Last week marks the two-year point since the Defense Department — worried that only 56.5 percent of its contracted dollars involved a meaningful competition between two or more vendors — issued a series of corrective actions to reverse a downward slide that’s been ongoing for nearly a decade.

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