Justice Can Improve Its Contract Review Committee's Contribution to Better Contracting

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO evaluated how successful the Department of Justice's Contract Review Committee (CRC) has been in conducting preaward reviews of contracts over $100,000, sole-source contracts over $50,000, and potentially controversial contracts.

GAO found that Justice contracting officials believe that CRC has improved the Justice contracts which it reviewed and improved Justice contracting practices. CRC found deficiencies in 162 of the 307 contracts it reviewed during fiscal year (FY) 1983, and 93 percent of these deficiencies were subsequently addressed by the procuring organization. GAO noted that the CRC rejection of about 53 percent of the FY 1983 contracts reviewed showed that, despite its efforts, problems still exist with Justice's contracting practices. Further, only 89 percent of the contracts that should have been submitted to CRC were received. GAO concluded that, although there is some concern among contracting officials with CRC operations, it has generally been an effective tool for improving agency contract practices.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Arnold P. Jones Team: General Accounting Office: General Government Division Phone: (202) 512-7797