Contracting at the State Department - Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil
Fri May 09, 2008 at 05:37:09 AM PDT
crossposted from unbossed
Wouldn't it be nice for a change to read a GAO report on how the Bush administration is using contractors that found reasonable performance standards were set, that there was good oversight, that contractors performed as required, and that if they didn't they were given the boot?
Well, you'll have to keep holding your breath when it comes to the State Department . . . whose Secretary would be . . . .?
Suppose you read a GAO report that had these section headings?
State Has Limited Insight into Its Use of Interagency Contracting
State Cannot Ensure That Decisions to Use Assisted Interagency Contracting Are Being Made by the Appropriate Acquisition Officials
State’s Policies Do Not Ensure Contract Oversight for Assisted Interagency Contracts
Well, I might as well just stop there, because you know the drill. But it would be waste of a post not to add a bit more.
Office of the Procurement Executive (OPE) and the Office of Acquisitions Management
(AQM), as
The report concerns the use of interagency contracting. The idea is a good one: essentially have agencies pool their needs and assist one another. The problem is that it becomes hard to ensure that there is proper oversight when contracting and oversight responsibilities are shared. As GAO puts it:
These include a lack of reliable data and transparency regarding when and how these contracts are used as well as a lack of clarity in the definition of roles and responsibilities for managing contracts when multiple agencies are involved. As a result of these and related issues, we designated the management of interagency contracting as a governmentwide high-risk
area in 2005.
In 2002, however, the State Department created a policy called "State First" to "require State’s domestic bureaus and offices to use State contracting offices, as opposed to paying another agency for contracting support services." GAO was interested in assessing whether this policy had minimized the risks of contracting as opposed to the failures at other agencies. Although smaller than DHS, GAO, and other agencies, State's reported "total contract obligations of over $5 billion in fiscal year 2006" and it has become "increasingly reliant on contractors to help carry out its mission."
GAO concluded that problems with the use of contractors persist and pervade State's contracting. Here are its findings.
Contracting Officials at the State Department Have "Limited Insight"
State officials have limited insight into the extent to which the department has used both methods of interagency contracting — direct by placing their ownorders on another agency’s contract and assisted by obtaining contract support services from another agency. State officials cannot rely on the federal government’s primary data system for tracking procurements to readily identify instances when State has used interagency contracts. Further, State’s central procurement and accounting systems do not reliably and comprehensively identify when interagency contracts have been used.
While State officials told GAO the most reliable way to identify interagency contract actions would be to request data on these actions from bureaus and overseas posts, several bureaus and posts had difficulty responding to such a request. State reported to GAO over $800 million in interagency contract actions in fiscal year 2006, but these data were incomplete. For example, State did not report $144 million in assisted contracting performed on its behalf by the Department of Defense. GAO has previously reported that the lack of reliable information on interagency contracts inhibits agencies from making sound contracting decisions and engaging in good management practices.
Due to the way the State First policy has been implemented, State cannot ensure that decisions to use assisted interagency contracting are made by the appropriate acquisition officials. These officials often lack awareness of or involvement in decisions to use assisted interagency contracts.
First, State acquisition officials have created exemptions limiting the assisted contract
actions subject to their review under the policy. For example, State’s guidance exempts funds transfers under the Foreign Assistance Act, under which bureaus conducting large amounts of interagency contracting operate.
Second, bureaus have varying interpretations of when approvals are needed under the policy. Some bureaus seek approvals for individual contract actions related to specific requirements. Another bureau interprets the policy as only requiring approval for a new overarching interagency acquisition agreement, which can encompass multiple contract actions and fiscal years.
Third, State acquisition officials do not monitor State First compliance, so they are not positioned to know whether the five approval requests received in fiscal year 2006 fully reflected the extent of that year’s assisted interagency contracting. State’s policies do not ensure that responsibilities for overseeing contractor performance on assisted interagency contracts are assigned to appropriately trained individuals.
State acquisition regulations do not require trained oversight personnel to be assigned when using assisted interagency contracting. As a result, effective oversight depends on factors outside of State’s control, such as the rigor of servicing agencies’ oversight requirements, which vary. GAO identified cases where State personnel were given responsibility for overseeing contractor performance but had not received related training. GAO and others have reported that agencies’ interests are put at risk when the individuals responsible for overseeing contractor performance are not clearly designated and have not been properly trained.
Not too surprising when you consider that this is the Bush Administration's pervasive policy at work with regard to contractors. And this is the Bush Administration's State Department that has had NO policy success that I can think of and a heck of a lot of failures.
The report is Interagency Contracting: Need for Improved Information and Policy Implementation at the Department of State GAO-08-578, May 8, 2008
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