Inspection Report: DOE-OIG-22-01

October 13, 2021

Allegation Regarding Contractor Performance Assessment Alteration

In March 2015, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environment, Health, Safety and Security entered into a contract to acquire specialized services at its facilities in Washington, DC, and Germantown, Maryland.  The contract was assigned a Contracting Officer to ensure the performance of all necessary actions for effective contracting, ensure compliance with the terms of the contract, and to safeguard the interests of the United States in its contractual relationships.

The Office of Inspector General received an allegation regarding the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) rating entered for a contractor for the period of March 2019 through March 2020.  The complaint alleged that the rating had been altered and was inconsistent with the input adjudicated by the Assessing Official that was provided to the Reviewing Official for comment.  We initiated this inspection to determine the facts and circumstances regarding the allegation concerning the alteration of the contractor’s performance assessment.

We substantiated the allegation that the contractor’s CPARS rating for the period of March 2019 through March 2020 had been altered and was inconsistent with the rating entered by the Assessing Official that was provided to the Reviewing Official for comment.

Past performance systems ensure that current, complete, and accurate information on contractor performance is available for use in procurement source selections to allow for informed business decisions when awarding Government contracts and orders.  If a lack of timely performance ratings and resulting concerns lead the Office of Management to act outside of established guidelines and alter a rating, there is no assurance that the information in CPARS is accurate or credible. 

To address the issue identified in this report, we have made one recommendation that, if fully implemented, should help ensure that issue identified during our inspection is corrected.