“Tom Temin: We’re speaking with David Berteau, president and CEO of the Professional Services Council, and closer to ground level, speaking of contractor competition, there is the seeming dissolution of the CIO-SP4 from NIH, that big GWAC just seems to get further and further from whatever momentum it had in being awarded.
David Berteau: PSC, last week, sent our latest letter to the acquisition leadership both at NIH and HHS, and shortly after we sent that letter amendment eight was issued. This is an RFP [request for proposal], the so-called final RFP has been out eight weeks, and it’s already had eight amendments. And the amendments completely changed both the requirements in the direction that potential bidders have to go in without giving them enough time to do it. We’ve called for NIITAC, the the sub agency within NIH that runs this process, to essentially suspend the process, issue a consolidated RFP that’s internally consistent, that responds to the issues that bidders have raised, and give people 30 days to put their bids together, not another eight days as amendment 8 did, unless you count weekends, of course, which the government thinks you should be working all the time if you’re bidding.
Tom Temin: Yeah, so this could really stretch deep into the fall if they take this to heart, and maybe start over.
David Berteau: It could, and we’ve heard from many of our members at PSC that this raises questions in their mind as to whether, A)they can submit a compliant bid, and B) whether it’s worth it. Because you can actually reduce competition quite effectively if you make it too hard to bid. And that I hope is not what the government’s intention is. It’s certainly not what’s in the government’s interest.
Tom Temin: No, because CIO-SP3 has been a successful GWAC with lots of contractors and billions of dollars in order. So, they do know how to run these things.
David Berteau: It has been, and of course one of the major focus points of the new one is health care technology and information systems, which if the last year and a half has shown us anything, is we’ve got a crying need to take maximum advantage of what technical capability exists in the private sector and bring it to bear for the government. And that’s what PSC is going to be pushing for here…” Read the full interview here.
Source: Executive order contains 72 initiatives on boosting competition in federal contracting – By Tom Temin, July 27, 2021. Federal News Network.
