Deviations From The FAR: Policy And Practice by Donald E. Mansfield

[Moderator]

Deviations From The FAR: Policy And Practice by Donald E. Mansfield

[General.Zhukov]

A story about deviations from the FAR.  I am unsure what is the moral of this story, but I take guess below.

HHS has, I think, three (maybe more?) deviations which change 52.212-5, one of which applies all the time.  If I understand how this works, then I'd expect all HHS contract to have clause 52.212-5 with at least one deviation, and some with 2+. 

I once did a hasty search for HHS combined s/s on sam.gov and found very few with any deviations for 52.212-5, and zero with more than one deviation.  

The letters/instructions and text of these HHS deviations, so far as I am aware, are found only behind a firewall, and not posted on any official HHS site which is publicly available.  

The deviations aren't included in HHS's own in-house clause library.  

• An uncharitable moral of this story, which I don't necessarily agree btw, is that this shows 1) HHS COs don't know or don't care about the deviations, and 2) HHS doesn't know or doesn't care that its 1102 workforce doesn't know or doesn't care about its deviations.  
• A more charitable moral to the story is that a typical HHS COs - with dozens to hundreds of actions per year - cannot possibly do everything they are supposed to do every time, so they make a trade-off, and skip some less important stuff like deviations.  HHS knows this but choses to look the other way.
• My take-away from this story is that HHS, at least (and probably many or most other civilian agencies), is overwhelmed, and can't deal with deviations - so, as a tool, deviations should probably only be used only as a last resort or when necessary.