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Showing results for tags 'clarifications'.
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I guess my whole question revolves around having a solicitation requirement that doesn't really reflect the Government's needs and ends up kicking out otherwise good offerors but no one realizes it until proposals are received. So I've been pondering this question of whether an offeror would be allowed to correct a minor error in their proposal in a negotiated procurement on a pass/fail item if failure to correct that error would result in removal of the proposal from consideration. Pass/fail items don't result in any proposal being rated higher or lower than another proposal, it's more a matter of acceptability/RFP compliance, so would a change in one of those after receipt of proposals necessarily be considered a "material" change or a deficiency as FAR 15.001 defines a deficiency as "a material failure of a proposal to meet a Government requirement or a combination of significant weaknesses in a proposal that increases the risk of unsuccessful contract performance to an unacceptable level." This pass/fail item may not necessarily increase the risk of unsuccessful performance to an unacceptable level but the solicitation itself may have been unintentionally restrictive enough regarding that item to result in removal of the proposal from consideration. For example, maybe an offeror is instructed to input a certain dollar amount for a cost reimbursable CLIN (say $10,000) but instead they input $5,000 and the RFP strictly states that any deviation from the pricing instructions would result in removal of the proposal from consideration. Or perhaps an offeror was instructed to submit a management approach which must discuss certain areas of employee retention but the plan fails to address it (again, it's a pass/fail and not rated on a scale). Changes to either of these wouldn't result in the proposal being rated higher or lower than another other proposal and allowing the offeror to correct their apparent mistakes wouldn't have resulted in any other offeror changing their proposals to their competitive advantage. FAR 15.306(b)(3) seems like an interesting avenue to allow for correction of these kinds of mistakes that are apparent upon review a proposal. Has anyone ever seen it actually implemented in such a manner so that the clarification process may be used rather than having to engage in discussions with each offeror? It's interesting to me that FAR 15.306 points to FAR 14.407 for how to handle these types of mistakes. The GAO always says that the acid test for whether it was discussions vs clarifications is the offeror getting the chance to revise their proposal but the COFC doesn't seem to always agree with that. Would the simplest and most reasonable solution be to just change the RFP after receipt and let everyone send in updated proposals or maybe just document the reasoning for not kicking those offerors out and continue the evaluation with those offerors?
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Has anyone recently used FAR 15.102 oral presentations in any source selections? If so, what were your experiences? The good, bad, and the ugly. How did you use them? As a substitute for written information? Just to augment written information? If you have used them (or are simply just aware of any) do you know of any prior/sample RFP's you could direct me? Thanks -
Hello folks - new member here. I have the following situation and am hoping for some feedback from other CO's out there: Background: Agency awarded a contract recently. Certain requirements of the contractor were not stated in the contract itself, but were clearly stated in the responses to questions submitted by vendors (during the solicitation period) as well as in the clarifications conducted between the agency and the winning contractor. (Clarifications occurred after solicitation closed and prior to award.) These requirements concerned technical compatibilities / requirements of software to be utilized by the contractor during contract performance. Situation: Agency and contractor (jointly) have now discovered that the contractor's software does not meet the technical requirements that were stated in the vendor Q&A and the clarifications. My question: How enforceable are requirements that were stated in the vendor Q&A and the clarification materials? Can the agency, in fact, hold the contractor to these terms? Or are there no grounds for this? The contractor is claiming that this information wasn't included in the RFP document itself or in the contract (which it was not) - and that thus, it isn't enforceable. I can sympathize with this point of view. However, the vendor Q&A was released as an amendment to the RFP, and as such, becomes a part of the overall RFP package - by which logic, it seems that the information contained within should be just as enforceable as the RFP. And, the even though the clarifications were not officially a part of the RFP package, the award was made directly as a result of the contractor's responses to the agency's clarification questions. Any input would be most appreciated. I have not yet come upon this situation before.