Agencies fall short on oversight of small biz subcontracts: GAO

      The federal government’s oversight of small business subcontracts is falling significantly short of what is required, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

      Senate members asked the GAO to do a spot check of subcontracting oversight at two military agencies and two civilian agencies, along with an examination of the Small Business Administration’s performance in its monitoring role.

      The GAO reviewed 26 randomly-chosen subcontracting plans for small businesses at four agencies--Defense Logistics Agency, General Services Administration, NASA and the Navy. Prime contractors generally must submit subcontracting plans for solicitations of $700,000 or more. The examination found several problems:

• For half of the contracts reviewed, there was no evidence that the SBA’s Procurement Center Representatives had a chance to review the plans as required.
• For 14 of the 26 contracts reviewed, contracting officers did not enforce the requirement for primes to submit subcontracting reports showing progress, or lack of progress, toward small business subbing goals.

        In some cases, reports were accepted that had different goals than in the approved subcontracting plans, with no explanation, the GAO added.

• SBA’s Commercial Market Representatives are supposed to conduct compliance reviews to evaluate a large primes’ compliance with subcontracting goals and procedures. However, SBA could not provide documentation for almost all compliance reviews conducted in fiscal years 2016–2018.

      In fiscal 2019, SBA conducted compliance reviews that reflect a first phase of new procedures, but did not maintain clearly documented records of those reviews, the GAO said.

      The GAO made 10 recommendations for improvements.

More information:
GAO report: https://bit.ly/3j2hwRO

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