October 28, 2011

Non-Facility Contractor Prior Performance

We conducted an audit to determine whether the Department adequately considered contractor prior performance when making new non-facility contract and financial assistance awards including contracts funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  We found that the Department had not always considered prior contractor performance nor completed contractor performance assessments in a timely manner for non-facility contract and financial assistance awards.  Pre-award evaluations of a prospective contractor's prior performance and reviews of the Excluded Parties List System were not always conducted primarily because procurement officials and/or contracting personnel did not follow or apply Federal and Departmental requirements and procedures.  Additionally, Department officials stated that post award evaluations of contractor performance were often not performed because contracting officer's representatives did not place sufficient emphasis on completing this requirement.  We made several recommendations involving the adoption of best practices that should help the Department improve its controls over the evaluation of contractor prior performance.

Topic: Management & Administration