GAO has stated that an agency has no obligation to continue to seek updated past performance information "once its past performance evaluation is complete."  GAO has also stated that agencies are not required to update past performance evaluations even where new CPARS reports are made available "before the source selection decision is made."  What if the agency has been evaluating past performance for many proposals for over a year, and the evaluators still have NOT completed their evaluation?  Obviously, no source selection decision has been made.  And say that there are new CPARS Reports that were entered after the CO pulled the CPARS Reports over a year ago when the solicitation closed.  The way GAO phrased its decision, that an agency has no obligation to check for updated CPARS after the PP evaluation is complete, leaves open the question, is GAO implying that an agency does have an obligation to check for updated CPARS up until the moment just before the evaluators complete their PP evaluation, but after the PP evaluation is "complete," but before a source selection decision is made, the agency has no obligation to seek updated past performance information such as new CPARS reports?

Matter of: Theodor Wille Intertrade GmbH, B-419269.4, B-419269.5, B-419269.6, B-419269.7

Given that there is no general requirement that an agency continue to seek updated performance information once its past performance evaluation is complete, we find nothing objectionable in the agency's failure to seek out any available information regarding EFS's performance on its incumbent zone 2 contract since December 2019, or EFS's performance on its zone 3 contract awarded in September 2020. See Affordable Eng'g Servs., Inc., supra at 12-13 (finding the agency's past performance evaluation reasonable where one CPARS report remained incomplete, and another was completed only after the agency's final evaluation was complete). Accordingly, we deny these protest allegations.

Matter of: GVI Inc., B-419397, B-419397.2

The agency explains, and GVI does not dispute, that these reports were not available when it completed its past performance evaluation.  MOL at 19 n.3.  We find nothing unobjectionable in the agency’s failure to review CPARS information that was not available at the time of proposal evaluation.  See CMJR, LLC d/b/a Mokatron, B‑405170, Sept. 7, 2011, 2011 CPD ¶ 175 at 8; Affordable Eng’g Servs., B-407180.4 et al., Aug. 21, 2015, 2015 CPD ¶ 334 at 12-13 (agencies are not required to update past performance evaluations even where new CPARS reports are made available before the source selection decision is made).

7 hours ago, govt2310 said:

What if the agency has been evaluating past performance for many proposals for over a year, and the evaluators still have NOT completed their evaluation?  Obviously, no source selection decision has been made.  And say that there are new CPARS Reports that were entered after the CO pulled the CPARS Reports over a year ago when the solicitation closed. 

What do you think would be the intelligent thing to do?

10 hours ago, govt2310 said:

Given that there is no general requirement that an agency continue to seek updated performance information once its past performance evaluation is complete…

In addition to what Vern asked, note the highlighted wording. I could read “general requirement” as meaning without exception, “describing the whole of something without considering the details”, and other similar definitions. So, “no general requirement” could imply to me that one should consider the overall context of the given scenario/situation to determine the reasonableness of not seeking or considering updated or additional performance information.

Edited July 16, 20223 yr by joel hoffman

The intelligent thing to do would be not to take a year to complete PP evaluation in the first place.  Well, I think GAO is assuming that a PP evaluation should not take very long, maybe a few days or weeks at most, and then it is done.  Also, what does GAO mean by "evaluation"?  If there are, say 50 offerors, so there are 50 proposals, the evaluators obviously are going to go through proposals one-by-one.  Is GAO saying, once the evaluators get to Offeror #3, for example, the evaluators must alert the CO, "we are ready to start evaluating Offeror #3," then within a day or two, the CO pulls the CPARS Reports for Offeror #3 and provides them to the evaluators, and about 3-5 days later, the evaluators have "completed" their PP evaluation of Offeror #3?  So then the agency has no obligation after that to seek updated PP information?  Or is GAO saying, the PP evaluation is "complete" only when the agency has finished evaluating PP for all 50 offerors, which say, takes a year?  Therefore, the agency has a duty to, say, at month 11, to check CPARS again for updated CPARS Reports for each of the 50 offerors?  If the agency did that, then it would take another year for the agency to "complete" the PP evaluation, and then the cycle would continue ad infinitum, see? 

4 hours ago, govt2310 said:

...and about 3-5 days later...

How about 3-5 hours later?

Yes, I know it should only take 3-5 hours typically, good point, but if the evaluators are taking a year, I'm thinking the best approach is baby steps.  Get them down to a few days first, then try to get them to get down to a few hours. 

You should easily be able to do all fifty past performance evaluations in a single week.

Best wishes!