**GAO-09-374**                      Published: Apr 23, 2009. Publicly Released: May 22, 2009.                  

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## Highlights

In fiscal year 2007, federal agencies worked with over 160,000 contractors, obligating over $456 billion, to help accomplish federal missions. This reliance on contractors makes it critical that agencies have the information necessary to properly evaluate a contractor's prior history of performance and better inform agencies' contract award decisions. While actions have been taken to improve the sharing of past performance information and its use--including the development of the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS)--concerns remain about this information. This report assesses agencies' use of past performance information in awarding contracts; identifies challenges that hinder systematic sharing of past performance information; and describes efforts to improve contractor performance information. In conducting this work, GAO analyzed 62 contract solicitations from fiscal years 2007 and 2008 and met with 121 contracting officials. While the solicitations represent a range of contracts and contractors, GAO's findings cannot be generalized to all federal contracts.

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## Topics

Government Operations

AccountabilityContract administrationContract performanceContracting officersContractorsContractsDefense procurementDepartment of Defense contractorsDocumentationEvaluation criteriaFederal agenciesFederal procurementFederal procurement policyFederal regulationsGovernment informationGovernment information disseminationInternal controlsPerformance measuresReporting requirementsSolicitationsSource selectionPerformance appraisalMultiple award procurementProcurement policyProcurement practicesProcurement recordsPolicies and procedures