technical evaluation | The Contracting Education Academy

January 12, 2021 By cs

Majority of FY20 protests find some success at GAO

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released its Annual Report to Congress summarizing bid protest activity for Fiscal Year 2020.

The report shows that, in a unique year where COVID-19 altered procurement practices and priorities, protest activity at GAO was remarkably stable. Of note, GAO’s “effectiveness rate” this year topped 50 percent, meaning most protests resulted in some form of relief. The number of task order protests continues to increase, despite a modest dip in overall protests. Unsurprisingly, again there were very few hearings.

The chart below summarizes the GAO protest statistics from FY 2015 to FY 2020.

Keep reading this article at: https://governmentcontractsnavigator.com/2020/12/29/majority-of-fy-2020-protests-find-some-success-at-gao/

See the GAO’s full report here: https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-21-281SP

November 14, 2019 By cs

Bid protests hit 10-year low

Companies filed 16% fewer bid protests in fiscal 2019 than the year prior.

According to data released last Thursday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), vendors filed 2,198 protests in fiscal 2019, 16% fewer than were filed in the previous year. Fiscal 2019’s total represented 22% fewer protests than GAO’s 10-year high-water mark—the 2,789 filed in fiscal 2016.

According to GAO, the agency closed 2,200 cases in fiscal 2019 and sustained 77 of the 587 total decisions decided on merit. Fiscal 2019’s 13% sustain rate—wherein GAO agrees with the bid protestor—was its lowest since fiscal 2015. A large number of bid protests are resolved when agencies agree to take corrective action rather than GAO carrying the protest to full conclusion.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2019/11/bid-protests-hit-10-year-low/161168/

January 17, 2019 By AMK

DoD’s long-awaited LPTA regulations expected in 4th quarter of FY19

For a number of years now, Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) source-selection procedures have come under fire for overuse and misuse at the same time budget constraints make LPTA methods more enticing to some cash-strapped agencies.

In an LPTA procurement, the Government evaluates proposals for mere technical acceptability under the solicitation’s stated evaluation criteria. Of the technically acceptable proposals received from eligible offerors, the Government then awards the contract to the lowest-price proposal, without considering any additional value that more expensive proposals may provide. In an LPTA acquisition, it does not matter that the second least expensive proposal may have three times more technical merit than the lowest-price technically acceptable proposal. Even if that technically superior proposal is only a dime more expensive, the Government is required to make the award to the acceptable proposal that is ten cents cheaper.

Some of you may remember that, way back in 2016, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2017, requiring the Department of Defense (DoD) to revise the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) within 120 days to require DoD contracting officers to ensure six criteria are satisfied before issuing a solicitation on an LPTA basis.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=767110

March 13, 2018 By AMK

OPM’s post-breach contracting efforts fall short again, IG says

The Office of Personnel Management inspector general again found flaws in the agency’s contracting for the credit monitoring and ID theft services it provides to the more than 21.5 million current, former and prospective federal employees affected by the 2015 data breaches.

OPM has gone through two different contracts for post-breach protections. The IG found “significant deficiencies” in the contracting process of the first one, a $20 million contract to Winvale Group and subcontractor CSID. When that contract expired, OPM opted for a contract with ID Experts to provide services for three years with a potential value of $330 million.

In a report released Tuesday, auditors found the agency’s Office of Procurement Operations bypassed some of the Federal Acquisition Regulation and the agencies’ purchasing rules for the ID Experts contract.

The IG found 15 areas of noncompliance, such as designating the contracting officer representative after the award, failing to check the System for Award Management and data-entry errors. Auditors also found incomplete or unapproved contractual documents, including the acquisition plan, market research plan and technical evaluation plan.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2018/03/opms-post-breach-contracting-efforts-fall-short-again-ig-says/146475/

October 20, 2017 By AMK

Does agency’s ‘corrective action’ have any limits?

In a recent case, the Army got dinged in the Court of Federal Claims (COFC) despite – indeed, because of – the agency’s efforts to correct a problematic procurement.

58 offerors bid for the Army’s recompete of its Army Desktop Mobile and Computing contract vehicle, but only 9 proposals were deemed technically acceptable. When 21 of the disqualified bidders protested, the Army took “corrective action.” It reopened the competition, allowing all offerors to submit revised proposals and new prices. But the COFC found that the proposed corrective measure was overbroad. The court’s ruling demonstrates that agencies need to tailor corrective action to procurement’s unique problems.

When the Army sought proposals for a series of IDIQ contracts covering desktop computer computers, notebooks, tablets, printers, and beyond, offerors were to be assessed based on three factors. Those three factors were past performance, technical acceptability, and price. Offerors were required to demonstrate technical acceptability, the primary evaluative criteria, by filling out spreadsheet forms in the RFP.

The Call for Corrective Action

With 58 offerors competing, you would expect many proposals would be deemed acceptable, and that price would then become the primary determinative factor. But out of all the proposals submitted, only 9 were deemed technically acceptable, and all 9 contractors with technically acceptable proposals were given contract awards. It’s no surprise that 21 disappointed offerors filed protests at GAO. The protestors felt that they had technically acceptable items, but were thwarted by confusing aspects of the required spreadsheets, and had made honest mistakes in filling them out. Those who had guessed correctly how to tackle the ambiguous spreadsheets were rewarded, and those who’d guessed incorrectly lost out.

Keep reading this article at: https://petrillopowell.wordpress.com/2017/09/26/does-an-agencys-corrective-action-have-any-limits/