Internal Government Cost Estimates (IGCEs) are frequently used to gauge the reasonableness of contractor prices during proposal evaluation. But can these internal estimates also impact other evaluation factors? GAO was recently asked to resolve this question in the context of past performance evaluations, and the answer was essentially “you sure can!”
Alright, GAO wasn’t that enthusiastic, but it did condone the use of IGCEs when evaluating past performance.
Continue readingBy now, our frequent readers are familiar with GAO’s mantra that it is an offeror’s responsibility to submit a well-written proposal that complies with the solicitation’s requirements and risks being found unacceptable if it fails to do so.
That rule serves its purpose: it helps maintain an organized bidding process, under which the agency can evaluate proposals on an even footing. But it can also lead to harsh results, like it did in a recent protest challenging a proposal’s unacceptability due to its non-compliant table of contents.
Let’s take a look.
Continue readingCounseling clients and prospective clients on a potential bid protest, we often ask: Why would you like to file this protest? Of course, the answer inevitably involves the discussion of a flaw (or several) in the evaluation process that, had they not been committed, would have resulted in a different award decision.
In its latest report, the Section 809 Panel offers another consideration: Will this protest ensure confidence in the acquisition system?
Continue readingWhen it comes to timely filing a bid protest, government contractors should keep one overriding principle in mind: late is late, and it probably won’t matter why the protest wasn’t timely received.
GAO recently reaffirmed this principle when it dismissed a bid protest that wasn’t timely received by its new, mandatory Electronic Protest Docketing System.
When we write about bid protest decisions on SmallGovCon, odds are that we’re writing about a GAO decision. For good reason: GAO is the most common forum protesters bring bid protests.
But SmallGovCon readers also know there’s another possible forum for protests: the Court of Federal Claims.
The GAO publishes an annual bid protest report with statistics about the number and effectiveness rate of protests, among other things. But until very recently, we didn’t have much hard data about the frequency and efficacy of COFC protests. The recently-released RAND bid protest report changed that, by including a deep dive on DoD bid protests at COFC.
Let’s take a look.
Only a very small percentage of DoD contracts–0.3 percent, to be precise–are protested, according to a comprehensive and fascinating new report on bid protests issued by the RAND Corporation.
The detailed report, which was prepared at the behest of Congress, concludes that DoD bid protests are “exceedingly uncommon,” and typically aren’t frivolous. RAND’s analysts urge policymakers to carefully consider the data when evaluating whether reforms to the bid protest process are necessary–and to “avoid drawing overall conclusions or assumptions about trends from one case when it comes to the efficacy of the bid protest system.”
Amen to that.
GAO bid protests succeeded almost half the time in Fiscal Year 2017.
According to the GAO’s latest Bid Protest Annual Report, the effectiveness rate of GAO bid protests was 47% in the recently-completed fiscal year. The statistics are striking, because they come just as Congress is finalizing the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes measures aimed at reducing bid protests. But with bid protests succeeding at a nearly 50% clip, why does the protest “reform” debate seem to center almost entirely on discouraging contractors to protest, rather than on decreasing the number of flawed source selection evaluations?