Federal Regulations Need To Be Revised To Fully Realize the Purposes of the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984

In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed whether the changes made to various federal regulations conformed with the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984, and obtained information on how many agencies have issued their own acquisition regulations and how many have revised them based on the act.

GAO found that: (1) some Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) provisions are inconsistent with congressional intent, with respect to exceptions to competitive procedures, justifications for exceptions to the competitive procedures, publicizing proposed contract actions, reporting contract awards to the government database, and notifying unsuccessful offerers; (2) some FAR provisions could better meet the objectives of the act if they gave agency heads and contracting officers more discretion in requiring contractors to submit certified cost or pricing data and strengthened the requirements relating to procurement planning; (3) some Federal Information Resources Management Regulation (FIRMR) references to FAR provisions are inconsistent with the act's intent; (4) FIRMR has not been revised to reflect congressional intent regarding the award of follow-on contracts under the act's first exception to competitive procedures; and (5) as of May 1985, 13 of the 21 agencies and 3 subagencies that have acquisition regulations implementing or supplementing FAR have not revised them to conform to the act or the circular that amends FAR.

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: Paul F. Math Team: Government Accountability Office: Office of the General Counsel Phone: (202) 512-4587