The military in general has been falling short of adhering to guidance on single-bid contracts, the DoD inspector general has concluded.
After reviewing 107 contracts valued at about $1.4 billion, 47 contract modifications valued at $461.3 million, and 83 Broad Agency Agreement, and Small Business Innovation Research, contracts valued at $96.3 million, it said the Services did not follow single-bid guidance for 31 of 78 single-bid contracts because the competition advocates, did not adequately monitor their commands’ implementation of the guidance to verify proper application.
It also said they did not develop adequate plans to increase competition because Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (DPAP) did not provide effective oversight of the plans.
It said competition advocates did not develop specific steps to improve competition rates in their plans. Nor did they develop specific steps to prevent 39 of 47 contract modifications, valued at $390.9 million, from exceeding the 3-year limitation on awarding contract modifications without first re-competing.
They also did not correctly code the remaining 29 of 107 contracts in the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation (FPDS-NG), database because competition advocates did not establish an adequate review process to verify that contracting officers correctly input the contract type, the IG said.
Further, it said the Services have not realized potential cost savings associated with increased competition and re-competing $390.9 million in contract modifications and DoD cannot accurately assess the percent of improvements in DoD achieving effective competition.
The IG called on the DPAP director to review the Services’ competition reports, direct the competition advocates to develop a plan related to the length of contract modifications, and modify the DoD effective competition report.
It also recommended that competition advocates develop procedures to adequately monitor their commands’ implementation of the single-bid guidance, develop steps to increase competition in their competition plans and three-year period of performance plans, and monitor their contracting officers’ FPDS-NG input.
