“Some contractors are expressing concern about potential prohibitive requirements on contractor teaming arrangements and joint ventures that could hurt small and mid-sized businesses in the mega IT contract CIO-SP4.”
“The latest National Institute of Health’s Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC) governmentwide acquisition contract is expected to be worth $40 billion. CIO-SP3 ends in May 2022. Civilian agencies, with the Department of Health and Human Services being the top one, account for three-quarters of NITAAC orders while the Defense Department accounts for the rest.”
“The GWAC has a heavy small-business footprint and includes set-asides; average orders for small business, HUBZone, SDVOSB, 8(a), and Women Owned range from $15,000 to $400 million in CIO-SP3. In fiscal year 2019, 62 awards totaled more than $3.5 billion under CIO-SP3, and 106 awards accounted for more than $1.8 billion to small businesses.”
“NITAAC says contracts are awarded through a comprehensive evaluation process including technical capabilities, past performance, and small business subcontracting plans. For CIO-SP4, ‘the ceiling value of each contract will increase, likely from $20 billion to $40 billion,’ there may be ‘a phased evaluation approach that requires vendors to fill out a self scoring sheet’ that ‘may be evaluated using a point system and cut-off,’ and ‘corporate experience will likely be used as an evaluation factor,’ according to NITAAC. ‘The number of small business awards will likely stay about the same from CIO-SP3 to CIO-SP4.’”
“Contractor teaming arrangements and joint ventures form in the CIO-SP4 competition to level the playing field and help mid-tier and small businesses meet qualification requirements such as health subject matter expertise. At a November AFCEA-sponsored NITAAC information-sharing session, contractors were told that all CTAs and JVs must have had experience working on the same corporate experience project together for it to be used toward the self-scoring sheet, and corporate experience from members of a CTA defined in FAR 9.601(1) may be used if the members worked together on that project.”
“Concerned industry members argue this requirement would not benefit the government’s goals but would reduce the number of qualified teams able to compete and disproportionately impact small and mid-tier firms…” Read the full article here.
Source: Contractors Fear Potential CTA Requirement in CIO-SP4 Could Hurt Small, Mid-Size Competitors – January 15, 2021. Homeland Security Today.
