Call to change how agencies rate contractor performance rises to new level

Source: federalnewsnetwork.com

Let’s start out with this basic truism: No one likes the current approach to rating contractor performance.

Neither the agency contracting officers nor program managers, and not the vendors who sometimes wait three to six months after the contract is complete to get a mostly meaningless “satisfactory” rating.

The data itself lacks value and transparency.

And, to be honest, it seems to have become another checklist activity for many agencies.

A new survey by GovConRx and the Office of Federal Procurement Policy shows, once again, just how little value there is in the current approach to contractor performance assessment ratings (CPARs).

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Coronavirus has boosted federal contract spending

Source: federalnewsnetwork.com

Tom Temin: Rob, good to have you back.

Rob Levinson: Great to be here Tom.

Tom Temin: So tell us first of all the top line how much has spending increased because of the pandemic?

Rob Levinson: Well, the top line Tom is $228 billion as of the end of the fiscal 2020, which ended on September 30. Now, again, that is only for civilian agencies, we don’t have the DoD data, because it’s delayed three months. So we won’t know that until January. But this $228 billion does appear to be a record as far back as we can tell. And it boosted about 17% from the previous year, fiscal 2019, which is also it seems to be a record jump. Usually we get like single digit percent increases every year. So this was two or three times what we’ve seen in recent years.

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Pentagon officials see ‘troubling’ small business decline since COVID

Source: defensenews.com

WASHINGTON ― Over recent months, the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency has awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts for the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, but that’s not necessarily benefitting the Defense Department’s usual vendors.

In fact, the Pentagon contracting arm is seeing fewer small businesses in its traditional supplier base competing for contracts in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the director of the DLA’s Office of Small Business Programs, Dwight Deneal, said Tuesday.

“Our percentages [of small business involvement] are as high as they’ve ever been over the past five years, but we are recognizing that the participation level from our supplier base’s standpoint has steadily declined,” Deneal said at a small business panel at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting, which was being conducted virtually.

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