Preaward Surveys - General

To protect the Government's interests and to ensure timely delivery of items of the requisite quality, contracting officers, prior to award, must make an affirmative determination that the prospective contractor is responsible, i.e., capable of performing the contract. Before making such a determination, the contracting officer must have in his or her possession or must obtain information sufficient to be satisfied that the prospective contract

• Has adequate financial resources or the ability to obtain such resources
• is able to comply with the required deliver schedule
• Has a satisfactory record of performance
• Has a satisfactory record of integrity; and
• Is otherwise qualified and eligible to receive an award under appropriate laws and regulations.

If such information is not in the contracting officer's possession, it is obtained through a preaward survey conducted by the contract administration office. The necessary data is collected by contract administration personnel from available data or through plant visits, phone calls, and correspondence. This data is entered on Standard Forms 1403, 1404, 1405, 1406, 1407, and 1408. The detail entered on these forms are typically commensurate with the dollar value and complexity of the procurement.

FAR 9.106-1 requires that preaward surveys be completed only when the information on hand or readily available to the contracting officer, including information from sources other than the offeror, is not sufficient to make a determination regarding responsibility. While not every one of these forms is required in every case, some are required regularly.

Over the next few days, we will be discussing each of these preaward survey forms, explaining the purpose and offering suggestions as to how prospective contractors can best represent themselves when the Government shows up with a sheaf of forms, ready to conduct their survey.

Regular readers of this blog will already be familiar with the SF Form 1408 so we will not be touching on that one again in this series. You can read more about the Form 1408 here and here and here..