This article is an excerpt from The Art of Tendering: A Global Due Diligence Guide.
In its September 2019 report entitled Small Business Research Programs: Many Agencies Took Longer to Issue Small Business Awards than Recommended, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that procurement staff shortages and work volumes were causing contract award delays in small business research program awards. By way of background, the report detailed that since 1982 “federal agencies have awarded at least 162,000 contracts and grants totaling around $46 billion to help small businesses develop and commercialize new technologies”. While the GAO noted that in fiscal years 2016 through 2018 agencies issued 76 percent (11,710 of the 15,453 awards) within the recommended time period, it also found that specific agencies “varied in the percentage of awards that they issued within the recommended time.” The GAO found that staffing issues and work volumes were causing delays in the ongoing timely award of those contracts:
Availability of reviewers. Officials from some component agencies we interviewed said the availability of agency staff or external reviewers affected the time they spent reviewing proposals. For example, USDA officials told us that the agency cannot notify awardees within 90 days because they need additional time to identify and recruit experts for their external peer review system. USDA officials compared their review process to that of the NSF and NIH, the two agencies that are directed to complete proposal review and notification within 1 year. Similarly, Navy officials said that the availability of reviewers was the biggest variable in completing their proposal review and notification process. These reviewers are Navy employees who contribute part of their time to reviewing SBIR and STTR proposals while continuing to perform their regular duties. According to Navy officials, although they give reviewers deadlines based on the number of proposals they have to review, conflicts with their regular duties or higher priority tasks may cause reviewers to miss their deadlines. In contrast, Department of Education officials said that they identify and train reviewers before the agency receives proposals so that the reviews may begin as soon as possible. Other agencies, however, may not know what areas of expertise reviewers will need until the agency has examined the proposals it received.
Number of proposals. Officials from some component agencies we interviewed said the number of proposals they receive affected the time spent reviewing proposals and notifying awardees. For example, officials from the Department of Transportation said that the number of proposals they receive can range between two and 40, which makes it difficult to predict the workload of agency evaluators who perform the proposal reviews. Similarly, National Institute of Standards and Technology officials said that the number of proposals they receive fluctuates from year to year. Because agencies must review all proposals that meet the minimum requirements, an increase in the number of proposals directly increases the workload of proposal reviewers.
As this report illustrates, purchasing institutions should be careful to properly resource their contracting operations to avoid creating bottlenecks due to staff shortages and inordinate work volumes. While under-resourcing a procurement operation may appear to be an easy answer to short-term savings, in the longer term, short-changing procurement operations will have exponentially larger adverse consequences to an organization’s overall operations.
