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TITLE VIII--ACQUISITION POLICY, ACQUISITION MANAGEMENT, AND RELATED MATTERS

Subtitle F--Provisions Relating to Services Contracting

P. L. 115-

House Conference Report. 115-404

(a) In General.—The Secretary of Defense shall encourage the use of standard guidelines within the Department of Defense for the evaluation of requirements for services contracts. Such guidelines shall be available to the Services Requirements Review Boards (established under Department of Defense Instruction 5000.74, titled “Defense Acquisition of Services” and dated January 5, 2016, or a successor instruction) within each Defense Agency, each Department of Defense Field Activity, and each military department for the purpose of standardizing the requirements evaluation required under section 2329 of title 10, United States Code, as added by this Act.

(b) Definitions.—In this section—

(1) the terms “Defense Agency”, “Department of Defense Field Activity”, and “military department” have the meanings given those terms in section 101 of title 10, United States Code; and

(2) the term “total force management policies and procedures” means the policies and procedures established under section 129a of such title.

The House bill contained a provision (sec. 869) that would require the Secretary of Defense to encourage the use of standard guidelines for the evaluation of services contracts throughout the Department of Defense and cited the Army’s checklist as a possible model.

The Senate amendment contained no such provision.

The Senate recedes with an amendment that would remove the reference to the Army checklist. While the conferees decline to designate a single instrument for use across the Department, the conferees firmly believe that the Department’s services contracting efforts would benefit from a far more rigorous and analytical approach than the Department has used so far. The conferees expect to see improved discipline in evaluating requirements in the near future.