Federal agencies do not always take advantage of acquisition planning, leading to late contract awards and cost overruns, a Government Accountability Office report says.
For its report released Aug. 9, the GAO surveyed the Departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, NASA and the Agency for International Development.
These four agencies have the largest budgets for professional, administrative and management support services.
The GAO found most agency components have established time frames for the final phase of acquisition planning, when program and contracting offices finalize contract requests.
However, there was no guidance on time frames needed for the pre-solicitation phase, when program offices to develop and obtain approvals of key acquisition planning documents.
“Agencies have also not measured the time needed during the procurement request phase to finalize these documents in collaboration with contracting offices,†the report says.
Click here to read the full report.
