# Presentation: 704953

## Source Selection for theSource Selection Official

**U.S. Department of Energy**
**Office of Procurement and Assistance Management**
**September 29, 2005**

## Preface

**	****The information contained in these briefing materials is intended to provide a general orientation to Source Selection Officials (SSO) for the conduct of major acquisitions conducted pursuant to the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Part 15.  This information consists of (1) certain regulatory information from the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Department of Energy Acquisition Regulation (DEAR), (2) other prescribed requirements, and (3) information derived from common practices and lessons learned from other acquisitions. This orientation material is not a substitute for the SSO’s understanding of the applicable regulations and appropriately applying the regulations and good business judgment to the particular circumstances of the acquisition.   In addition these briefing materials are not intended to cover every aspect of the acquisition process.  While the focus of these materials is toward major acquisitions, its principles may be applied, as appropriate, for other competitive acquisitions as well.**
- 	**This information is internal DOE briefing material.  The information contained in these materials does not form and should not be construed to convey any rights to third parties.**

## Topics of Discussion

**What is Source Selection? – Page 4**
**Typical Flow of Source Selection – Page 5**
**Source Selection Authority – Page 6**
**SSO’s Responsibilities – Page 7**
**Source Evaluation Board – Page 9**
**Evaluation Factors for Selection – Page 11**
**Source Selection Decision – Page 13**
**Best Value and Technical/Cost Trade-off -  Page 17**
**Schedule for the Acquisition – Page 20**
**Procurement Integrity Act – Page 21**

## What is Source Selection?

**“****Source selection” is the **_**decision process**_** used in competitive, negotiated contracting to select the proposal that offers the best value to the Government**
**The source selection process is governed by statute and regulations**
**“****Best value” means the expected outcome of an acquisition that, in the Government’s estimation, provides the greatest overall benefit to the Government in response to the Government’s requirement**
**The Government official responsible for selecting the winning offeror in a negotiated procurement is the Source Selection Official (SSO)**
**The decision by the SSO has a significant impact on the Department’s ability to successfully accomplish its programmatic missions**
**While there are many participants in the source selection process, the “buck” stops with the SSO**

## Source Selection Authority

**Contracting Officer is responsible for source selection, unless agency head appoints another individual **[FAR 15.303(a)]
**In DOE the Secretary has delegated source selection authority to the Source Selection Official (SSO) as follows **(AL 2000-09)
- Procurement Executive: Major facility management contracts (M&O, M&I, EM remediation)
- Head of Contracting Activity (HCA): All other procurement actions
- These delegated authorities may be re-delegated
- SSO authority is delegated to an individual person, not a position or title

## SSO’s Responsibilities

**Establish an evaluation team – Source Evaluation Board (SEB) **
- Ensure the SEB is qualified and has the resources to accomplish the evaluation
- Ensure the SEB is appropriately briefed and follows  procurement integrity
**Approve the Acquisition Plan **
**Approve the Request for Proposal (RFP)**
- Ensure consistency among solicitation requirements, e.g., statement of work, proposal preparation instructions, evaluation factors, contract provisions, etc.
- Assure the statement of work reflects the Government’s requirements
- Ensure the Rating Plan is consistent with the evaluation criteria  (Section M)

## SSO’s Responsibilities

**Approve the Rating Plan**
**Ensure proposals are evaluated based solely on the factors contained in the solicitation**
**Consider the evaluations of the SEB, advisory boards or panels, and ex-officio members of the SEB**
- Evaluations must be consistent with the RFP and the Rating Plan
- Ensure documentation of the SEB is clear, thorough, and complete
**Select the source whose proposal is the best value to the government**
**Document the selection**

## Source Evaluation Board

**The SSO appoints the SEB Chairman and SEB members to conduct the acquisition**
**The purpose of the SEB is to solicit and evaluate proposals and report its evaluation to the SSO**
**Membership should be tailored for the particular acquisition to assure a comprehensive evaluation of offers and should include, as appropriate, contracting, legal, technical, financial, etc. [FAR 155.303(b)(1)]**
**SEB members, as a group, should have sufficient experience in RFP development and proposal evaluations; formal training class for the SEB as a group is recommended**
**SSO should be accessible to the SEB when needed; SSO should be aware of the activities and progress of the SEB**
**SSO should expect to be able to rely on the assigned Contracting Officer and Legal Advisor to assist him/her through the process**

## Source Evaluation Board

**SSO**

***SEB **
**Chairman**
***SEB **
**Members**

**Cost **
**Team**

**Specialty **
**Advisors**

**Business Mgmt.**
**Team**

**Technical**
**Team**

**Counsel**

***Contracting**
**Officer**

**Ex-Officio**
**Advisors**

**Contract**
**Specialist**

- *The Contracting Officer may also serve as the SEB Chairman or an SEB member.

## Evaluation Factors For Selection(FAR 15.304)

**Represent key areas of importance to be considered in selection decision**
- Not necessary to evaluate all areas of the statement of work
- Limit the evaluation criteria to those critical few
- Too many evaluation criteria adds unnecessarily to the burden, complexity, and cost to both the offerors and the SEB
- Too many evaluation criteria tends to group versus separate the offerors
**Identify meaningful discriminators among proposals**
- Define what will distinguish offerors from each other
- Reveal measurable differences or risk levels among proposals

## Evaluation Factors For Selection(FAR 15.304)

**Required areas of evaluation ****[FAR 15.304(c)]**
- Price or cost
- Quality of product or service
- Past performance
- Extent of small business participation in acquisitions not set-aside for small business [15.304(c)(4)]
**The RFP must specify **
- The evaluation factors and any sub-factors
- The relative importance of the evaluation factors to one another, including cost/price

## Source Selection Decision (FAR 15.308)

**SSO’s decision must be based on a comparative assessment of proposals against evaluation criteria in the solicitation**
**SSO’s decision must represent the SSO’s independent judgment**
- May use reports/analysis of others, e.g., SEB report, technical/cost team evaluations; request additional information from the SEB when needed
- Not bound by the findings of the SEB, i.e., the SSO can assess a proposal differently as long as there is a reasonable basis consistent with the proposal and the RFP evaluation criteria
- SSO should discuss issues with SEB, listen to dissenting opinions, and consult with ex-officio’s as appropriate
- Not based solely on numerical/adjectival rating; rather the relative strengths and weaknesses of the proposals

## Source Selection Decision (FAR 15.308)

**In making the selection decision, the SSO may choose/need to:**
- Read proposals or portions thereof
- Read resumes of key personnel
- Attend oral presentations; attend all or none for consistent treatment of offerors

## Source Selection Decision (FAR 15.308)

**SSO’s decision must be documented in the Source Selection Statement**
- Succinctly and accurately provides rationale for the selection decision
- Explains how the successful offeror compares to the other offerors based on the solicitation evaluation criteria
- Rationale for any business judgments and technical/cost tradeoffs, i.e., the benefits associated with additional cost
- Address any significant differences between the SSO’s judgment and the SEB’s evaluation

## Source Selection Decision (FAR 15.308)

**SEB Recommendation**
- SSO may request the SEB to make a selection recommendation
- Normally a selection recommendation is not made by SEB
**SSO’s alternatives, depending on the circumstances**
- Select source for award
- Request additional analysis of the SEB or others
- Request additional information, e.g., past performance
- Establish competitive range and conduct discussions
- Determined by the Contracting Officer with concurrence by the SSO
- Re-open  discussions
- Amend RFP and obtain revised proposals
- Cancel RFP

## Best Value and Technical/Cost Trade-off (FAR 15.101; DOE DOE Acq. Guide Ch. 15.1, Part X)

**Technical/cost trade-off is a determination of whether the value of technical and business differences between proposals justify paying a higher cost/price**
**The technical/cost trade-off does not have to be quantified in dollars; But, it has to be a reasonable, well founded basis for the decision**
**If the selected offeror has the highest rated technical/business proposal and the lowest evaluated price, no trade-off analysis is required**

## Best Value and Technical/Cost Trade-off 

**The SSO has wide discretion, as long as the trade-off is reasonable**
- Must be based on strengths/weaknesses and differences of proposals vs. price differential, i.e., not a mathematical calculation
- Must be consistent with the stated evaluation criteria
**The primary bases for a challenge are:**
- The technical/business evaluations are inconsistent with the terms of the solicitation
- The cost/technical tradeoff decision was unreasonable** **
- The probable cost was not well founded and documented to support the technical/cost trade-off

## Best Value and Technical/Cost Trade-off

**Examples of rationale for business judgment and tradeoffs are:**
- The amount of the cost differential
- The criticality of providing the service or product and the potential consequences in the event of poor performance, i.e., risk
- Rationale for tradeoffs should be reflected in the relative importance of the individual evaluation criterion

## Schedule for the Acquisition

**Make it realistic**
**If a schedule is published, either internal to DOE or publicly, it will become the expectation**
**Allow sufficient time for HQ business clearance review process and appropriate and necessary senior management involvement**
- RFP
- SEB Reports
- Source selection documents
- HQ briefings
**Allow sufficient time to hold discussions and to resolve protests**
- Even if award without discussions is planned, discussions may become necessary depending on the proposals
- While the schedule may not always be able to build in protest time, assure there is a contingency plan for continuing work, as necessary

## Procurement Integrity Act (FAR 3.104; DOE Acq. Guide Ch. 3)

**Procurement Integrity Act intended to preserve the integrity of the Federal procurement process and assure fair treatment of bidders, offerors and contractors**
**The Act covers -**
- Current Federal Employees
- Certain Former Employees
- Bidders and Offerors
- Other personnel involved in agency procurements and contracts
**Disclosure of proposal information is prohibited including:**
- Any contents of proposals
- Number or names of offerors
- Names of offerors have been publically disclosed by DOE when permission was obtained from all of the offerors

## Procurement Integrity Act (FAR 3.104; DOE Acq. Guide Ch. 3)

**Disclosure of source selection information is prohibited**
- Source selection information is information prepared by the Government for the purpose of evaluating a proposal and includes
- Source selection or evaluation plans
- Reports of evaluation panels or boards
- Competitive range report or SEB report
- Draft RFPs are not to be disclosed unless released for public comment
**Discussing prospective employment with a prospective offeror is prohibited**
- Prohibition is on both the Federal employee and the company
- If a company makes contact for this purpose, report it
**Certain Federal employees involved in the evaluation of proposals may not accept employment from the selected contractor after the procurement is over for a period of 1 year**
- Applies to Contracting Officer, SSO, members of the SEB and certain others involved in the evaluation of proposals

## Procurement Integrity Act (FAR 3.104; DOE Acq. Guide, Chapter 3)

**Consider your normal job responsibilities and how they may affect your SSO responsibilities, e.g., do you interact with an existing contractor that may be a prospective offeror on your procurement**
**You may continue to perform your current job, but be careful in your interactions to assure they are not in any way related to or affect your SSO responsibilities and objectivity**
**Avoid social  interactions with offerors or potential offerors**
**Disclose anything that may be questionable to the Contracting Officer**
- Don’t dismiss a connection as de minimis
- Disclosure when the event occurs documents the matter in case a question arises later
- Disclose any social or private financial relationship with anyone who works for an offeror or potential offeror
- Disclose any family member’s (spouse/children) association with an offeror during the procurement process that may give rise to an actual or appearance of a conflict of interest
- Consider your stock and investment interests
**A specific briefing on the Procurement Integrity Act by counsel is recommended**