Federal Manager's Daily Report

DoD organizations completed comprehensive and timely contractor performance assessment reports for nonsystems contracts as required by government-wide and DoD policies, but did not fully comply with requirements for evaluating contractor past performance, an IG report has found.

Nonsystems contracts include contracts for operations support, services, and information technology; performance assessment reports, or PARs, are designed to provide source selection officials with information on contractor past performance.

Auditors reviewed 53 PARs and found that 49 of them “did not include sufficient written narratives to justify the ratings given, ratings for all required evaluation factors, or sufficient descriptions of the contract purpose.”

This occurred, it said, because organization-specific procedures did not have clear guidance for preparing PARs in a timely manner or did not address timeliness; assessors did not understand PAR rating definitions or evaluation factors; assessors did not take current training or properly implement training; and organization-specific procedures did not require reviews of PARs to ensure compliance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

It said DoD agreed with recommendations to register contracts, prepare PARs within 120 days, require that assessors take training for writing PARs, and evaluate PARs for quality.