**GAO-01-517**                      Published: Apr 20, 2001. Publicly Released: Apr 20, 2001.                  

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## Highlights

In 1996, Congress authorized a test program that permits government buyers to use procedural discretion and flexibility, so that commercial items may be obtained in a simplified manner. This report discusses how federal agencies demonstrated whether the test program produced the desired results and (2) assesses how the authority provided under the test program was being used on selected contracts. GAO found that (1) the Office of Federal Procurement Policy did not collect data to provide a basis for measuring whether the test program produced the desired results and (2) government buyers did not always demonstrate that prices were fair and reasonable for the contracts included in GAO's review. However, OFPP's 1999 survey of procurement executives showed that these executives believed that the program has had a positive impact on the federal procurement process. These executives believed that the authority provided under the test program should be made permanent. However, OFPP's survey did not collect empirical data that would have supported these views.

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## Topics

Government Operations

Data collectionFederal procurement policyProcurement evaluationSole source procurementSmall businessFederal agenciesProcurementAdministrative costsContract managementU.S. Air Force