GSA has produced a number of successful contract vehicles over the years, one of which was the One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Solution or “OASIS.” This vehicle, used to acquire professional services (not including information technology) for the government, was so successful that GSA is in the process of preparing its sequel, OASIS+. On March 6, 2023, the agency issued its second draft RFP, and the final RFP is expected soon. In light of this, we’re going to go through some of the planned provisions for OASIS+ for small businesses, with special attention to the provisions on teaming arrangements and joint ventures.
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GAO Upholds Low Agency Bar to Waive OCI
The FAR requires offerors, in most situations, to disclose any actual or potential organizational conflicts of interest (OCI) that exist when submitting an offer or proposal in response to a solicitation. While it is rare that an offeror will be excluded from competition solely due to the existence or potential of an OCI, offerors who do not disclose as required will most likely be excluded, making this a situation where you generally want to disclose the existence of an OCI up front, not explain after the agency’s discovery through other means. Offerors may choose to avoid, mitigate, or neutralize an OCI by putting up a organizational barrier between the individual creating the OCI and the perceived or actual conflict. However, in some situations, avoiding, mitigating, or neutralizing the OCI may not be in the agency’s best interest. In that case, and as happened in Accenture Federal Services, LLC, agencies are given the option to waive the requirements of FAR subpart 9.5, thereby making award regardless of the existence or potential of an OCI.
Continue readingForeign Ties: SBA Publishes Notice of SBIR and STTR Program Policy Directives Update
The Small Business Administration recently published a notice of an amendment to the Policy Directives for the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program on April 3, 2023. The intent of the amendment is to incorporate a template that federal agencies may use to request information from SBIR and STTR applicants that the applicants are statutorily required to disclose. The revisions will be effective May 3, 2023, unless the SBA receives significant adverse comments prior to the effective date. Not sure what the SBIR and STTR Programs are? I’ve provided a very brief overview below. Curious about the required disclosures? Read on to find out!
Continue readingBack to Basics: Debriefings
Debriefings are a crucial part of the complicated world of bidding on Government contracts. They can provide wonderful insight to contractors on where they can improve, where their proposals were strong, and in cases, may provide information that could indicate to a contractor that a bid protest may be warranted. Therefore, it is vitally important for contractors to understand what Debriefings are, what they can and can’t provide you, and why they matter. Previously, we here at SmallGovCon discussed 5 things you should know about Debriefings, but in this post we will do a more detailed dive into Debriefings based on the current regulations and contracting landscape.
Continue readingGAO Sustain: Agency Failed to Document Prior Experience Evaluation
Source selection decisions are often a point of contention for federal government contractors, and rightfully so. Contractors spend large amounts of time and resources putting together a bid in a competition that likely doesn’t have room to make an award to each bidder. This usually results in one or more awardees, as well as one or more disappointed bidders. Naturally, those disappointed bidders often question whether the agency’s source selection decision, and its method for getting there, was appropriate. Unfortunately, the only way of truly discerning whether that decision was correct is to spend more time and resources protesting the decision. With a 51% effectiveness rate in 2022 (counting sustains and corrective actions), according to GAO’s annual bid protest report, it can be difficult to determine whether to even go forward with a protest when things don’t seem to add up. But, as a recent protest demonstrates, agencies make mistakes, and in this case, the fatal flaw was failure to adequately document its decision.
Continue readingDoD to Utilize Category Management for Procurements, But this time to Increase Small Business Contracts
Last month, the Department of Defense (DoD), released a memorandum to its contracting specialists asking them to utilize the popular but controversial category management tactics to attempt to increase small business participation in DoD procurements. Some have said that category management tends to decrease small business spend by, for instance, pushing procurement to larger contracting vehicles, so this memo attempts to turn conventional wisdom on its head. The DoD’s intentions with this memorandum will likely increase use of category management at the largest governmental buyers, despite this contracting trend being criticized as ineffective or counter productive to increasing small business participation. Below we dig into what the memo says.
Continue readingBack to Basics: Registering in SAM.gov
SAM.gov, short for System for Award Management, is the entry point for federal contractors to interface with the government. So, it is a basic starting point for every federal contractor. But your SAM.gov profile also needs to stay up to date and be up to date at time of bid submission, and failure to keep your SAM profile active can cause problems, even for established contractors. Everyone involved with government contracting knows, or should know, a little bit about registration in SAM.gov.
This post walks you through the most important things you should know about registering in SAM.gov.
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