The Department of Health and Human Services’ internal watchdog found that the Food and Drug Administration failed to follow certain acquisition policies tied to how it manages its information technology contracts.

The Office of Inspector General report, released last week, found that agency officials did not follow existing acquisition and procurement policies and procedures, such as appointing a contracting officer’s representative, or COR, to monitor contractors’ performance. Auditors looked at a portion of the FDA’s $2.3 billion in contracts for IT equipment and services between fiscal 2018 and 2021…

As a result, the report noted that the lapses “could lead to repeat nonconformity with federal acquisition and procurement requirements in the administration and management of orders and missed opportunities to further improve competition for IT procurements within FDA.”

The OIG examined five contracts from the time period totaling $23.6 million in IT spend, finding that on two contracts, that a COR wasn’t designated to monitor performance and a contracting officer’s required signature was missing from the COR memo on a third… Read the full article here.