Contractors have the constitutional right to rebut past performance evaluations before they are stigmatized by the government’s assessments in the future. See Old Dominion Dairy Products, Inc. v. Secretary of Defense, 631 F.2d 953 (D.C. Cir. 1980). But full exercise of this right has the potential to conflict with the practical interest in efficient government procurement. The final revisions to the rules governing the process for reporting and appealing past performance evaluations demonstrate that the two ideals are not easily balanced. The Federal Register notice announcing the final revision to FAR 42.1503 can be found at 78 Fed. Reg. 46783 (Aug. 1, 2013) [pdf].

Helpful rules revisions

First the good news. The August 2013 final revisions to the rules requiring the government to evaluate past performance retain the existing requirement to allow contactor rebuttal and appeal. Commenters to the government’s proposal were unanimously against scrapping or substantially modifying the process. As summarized in the discussion of the final rule, commenters insisted that the appeals process “ensures that individual Government rater bias or lack of understanding of the complete program, not just contracting issues, can be brought out and addressed.” According to one commenter, at least 30 percent of past performance evaluation appeals result in substantive changes. The final rule maintains verbatim the language of former FAR 42.1503(b), now located at FAR 42.1503(d).

Improving agency assessments of contractor past performance has been a priority since the Government Accountability Office published its 2009 report criticizing the system. A number of new FAR rules can be linked to GAO’s recommendations. For example, GAO pointed to the lack of reporting on default terminations and defective pricing. The FAR has now been amended to require default terminations and defective pricing be reported as part of a contractor’s past performance. See 75 Fed. Reg. 60258 (Sept. 29, 2010) [pdf]. The latest proposed revision to the FAR responds to GAO’s recommendation that there be greater uniformity in past performance reporting. See 76 Fed. Reg. 37704 (June 28, 2011). The proposed rule would revise FAR 42.1503 to include five minimum evaluation factors for which contractors are to be evaluated:  (i) Technical or Quality; (ii) Cost Control (as applicable); (iii) Schedule/Timeliness; (iv) Management or Business Relations; and (v) Small Business Subcontracting (as applicable).  The proposed rule would also impose a uniform ratings scale for use by past performance evaluators. As defined in the CPARS Policy Guide, past performance would have to be described as exceptional, very good, satisfactory, marginal, or unsatisfactory.