Point premiums for socio-economic status?
Started by vdavez · Aug 17, 2023 · 3 replies
- vOriginal post
vdavez
Aug 17, 2023 · 2y ago
In the recent SH Synergy decision, the court suggests a potential evaluation criteria might be "to award a small point premium to protégé projects for each evaluation criterion satisfied." I know that would be fine under Part 8; FAR 8.405-5 provides that "Ordering activities may consider socio-economic status when identifying contractor(s) for consideration or competition for award of an order or BPA."
And yet, I couldn't seem to readily find any authority for explicitly giving preference to a socio-economic status in a Part 12 or 16 solicitation. Am I missing something? Where does the authority for including point premiums on a socioeconomic status in an IDIQ/GWAC come from?
Thanks in advance!
- D
Don Mansfield
Aug 18, 2023 · 2y ago
It's the other way around. You are to assume it is permissible unless you find otherwise. See FAR 1.102-4(e).
- v
vdavez
Aug 18, 2023 · 2y ago
Works for me! I wasn't sure if there was explicit authority somewhere (or, worse, something that restricted its use). Thanks Don!
- f
formerfed
Aug 18, 2023 · 2y ago
Don Mansfield said:
It's the other way around. You are to assume it is permissible unless you find otherwise. See FAR 1.102-4(e).
This principle got me and the contracting officer a trip to the White House to meet Al Gore. Back in the Clinton Administrations push for the Welfare to Work program, I thought about making companies commitment to the program an evaluation factor in procurements. We tried it for a large services contract and it worked. We ended up getting a lot of publicity including interviews and questions from all over asking about the authority we used. Our reply was that FAR concept.