Past Performance Evaluation

[Napa10]

Looking for some guidance on the use of internal government information in a Part 15 evaluation of an RFP for services to be performed at a Gov facility. One of the proposals submitted a Key Person with apparently significant management experience in the work required by the RFP. This experience was as a Gov employee who managed the same operation where the work of the current RFP is to be conducted. The evaluation team has indicated that they have been unable to locate anyone at this facility who can provide an evaluation of this Key Person's specific experience with this operation, and whether that experience is relevant to the RFP requirements. Question is concerning the risk for the Gov of not evaluating this Key Person's experience. Have tried to find any GAO decisions on this, but have found none. What should the evaluation team do with the Past Performance for this Key Person?

[joel hoffman]

Why not ask the proposer to provide a reference who can verify the person's experience or past performance? Whichever is the factor. You said "past performance", so let's assume that is the factor.

I don't know if it would be considered discussions or a clarification. See 15.306 (a) and (bee). If references were required with the proposal, then it would probably have to be discussions, if they didn't provide a required reference to verify the experience or PP. Or, if they did but the reference isnt reachable, it could possibly be considered clarifications. Ask your lawyer, at any rate. If considered discussions, you could rate the person's experience or PP (whatever the factor is) as unverifiable and ask for some reference(s) during discussions. If clarification, ask for the info to verify during the evaluation.

[joel hoffman]

Sorry - duplicate post.

[MGRumbaugh]

Looking for some guidance on the use of internal government information in a Part 15 evaluation of an RFP for services to be performed at a Gov facility. One of the proposals submitted a Key Person with apparently significant management experience in the work required by the RFP. This experience was as a Gov employee who managed the same operation where the work of the current RFP is to be conducted. The evaluation team has indicated that they have been unable to locate anyone at this facility who can provide an evaluation of this Key Person's specific experience with this operation, and whether that experience is relevant to the RFP requirements. Question is concerning the risk for the Gov of not evaluating this Key Person's experience. Have tried to find any GAO decisions on this, but have found none. What should the evaluation team do with the Past Performance for this Key Person?

If evaluators haven't been able to find anyone who can evaluate the key person's experience, I agree with Joel's suggestion to get a reference from the offeror. Can they confirm if the key person worked there at all? Or is it a situation where the staff isn't willing to talk about this person's performance? You may want to let them know that their responses won't be revealed to the offeror. Some may be concerned about lawsuits or backlash about discussing a former employee's performance.

Some confusion about your post. First you state that there's significant mgmt experience in the work required by the RFP, then you state that it's questionable if the experience is relevant. Which is it?

With regard to risk, seems to me you've tried to evaluate the performance. The evaluation documentation should state who you contacted, when, etc and document the record of due diligence. The risk is that this person never worked there or did a poor job and people aren't willing to discuss it. Since it's a past performance eval, you could evaluate it as neutral since you can't confirm that experience.

In the case of an offeror...for whom information on past performance is not available, the offeror maynot be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance.

See FAR 15.305(a)(2)(iv).