CIO-SP4 selection process to get revamp

The National Institutes of Health's IT acquisition organization will apparently make what could be a major revision of how it picks winners for the potential $50 billion CIO-SP4 contract vehicle.

All protests at the Government Accountability Office are dismissed. In asking GAO to do so, NIH's Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center said it found inconsistencies in the implementation of its November corrective action.

Every protest from the most recent fall and winter all deal with the threshold bidders must meet with their self-scoring assessments. Companies complained that NITAAC arbitrarily set the threshold.

NITAAC said in November that it would reconsider the threshold. But more protests immediately poured into GAO as NITAAC made new phase one decisions

In response to those protests, the agency apparently is re-assessing its source selection methodology and will make new determinations of who the highest-rated bidders are.

We have to note that this is all just to get through the first phase. Bidders must still survive phases two and three to ultimately get a position on the vehicle. These protests also have all involved just the small business portion.

With this new corrective action, NITAAC is not re-evaluating proposals because the earlier corrective action included NITAAC validating the self-scores of all the bidders, a source said.

NITAAC found the inconsistencies during a review of source selection documentation as it worked on a response to the most recent round of protests. The inconsistencies dealt with the rationale used to adjust certain scores, according to a source.

Once NITAAC reassesses its methodology, it will revise the source selection documentation and make new phase one decisions.

I have reached out to NITAAC for comment, but no response yet.

I do expect NITAAC to move quickly on this corrective action and think companies will start to get notifications by May. I only say this because the November corrective action led to notifications in January.

To remind, this is just for phase one. Actual awards won’t come until after phases two and three are completed.