It used to be that if you won a government contract and performed badly for one agency, no one else knew about it. There was little emphasis placed on past performance because there was no good way to really collect enough relevant information (and to verify it), to make it worthwhile. Now, of course, agencies exchange and share information constantly. And, as you’d expect, they have established standardized evaluation forms and central databases accessible by all government agencies to share information on each contractor’s performance, whether “Excellent,” “Marginal,” or worse “Unacceptable.” Why is this important? Because these assessments and comments can help or hurt your chances of winning additional contracts for years to come.

Anybody who’s had a federal contract has probably received a performance evaluation that was documented in either the Contract Performance Assessment Review System (CPARS) or the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS). These assessments are supposed to be conducted at least annually. Ratings such as “Excellent,” “Very Good,” “Satisfactory,” “Marginal” or “Unsatisfactory” are assigned in the areas of “Quality,” “Schedule,” “Cost Control,” “Management,” “Utilization of Small Business” and “Regulatory Compliance” as applicable. And you probably already know that you, as the contractor being evaluated, have 60 days in which to respond in writing in CPARS to the government’s comments. It gives you the opportunity to add important information and context to better convey the situation as a whole. Since Source Selection Officials often access CPARS to retrieve past performance information, monitoring and responding to these evaluations is very important to your ability to continue to win government contracts.

Looking at the adjectival ratings, a Source Selection official from any federal agency can see at a glance how another agency rated your performance of their contract for the period shown on the assessment. Getting a “Marginal” or “Unsatisfactory” rating is obviously not something a contractor would like to have documented regarding their performance. However, even with a “Satisfactory” rating, the most devastating aspect of these evaluations may not be the adjectival rating, but rather the comments that are provided by the Assessing Official on the same form.

For example, I have a client who recently received their latest CPARS assessment. They were rated “Satisfactory” in both Quality and Schedule, and “Very Good” in Management. Pretty good, right? But take a look at an example of some of the comments provided by the Assessing Official with regard to the Quality of their performance:

“Under Task Order X, the service provider requested Leave without Pay (LWOP) from 2Jan15 – 15Feb15 for surgery. No replacement employee was provided by Company A as required by the contract after 30 days. After 45 days of absence, the employee returned to work.” [Specific names and dates have been changed to protect proprietary company information.]

As someone looking for a contractor to perform one of my contracts, what this comment says to me is: “This contractor failed to perform in accordance with our contract. They left a required position vacant for 45 days, work unperformed, and they apparently did not care!”

Because the contractor was not monitoring their CPARS evaluations, this comment went unaddressed by them in the CPARS. What the evaluator had not said (and, in fairness, may not have known) was that the contractor had in fact submitted a candidate to the government for review and approval within the required timeframe, but that due to extended absence of the reviewing official, the package was not reviewed for more than 30 days, delaying approval of the proposed replacement until well after the employee who had been on LWOP had already returned to work! If the contractor had responded to the government’s comments with this explanation, it would have put the incident into context, showing that another government office had impacted the contractor’s ability to perform. Now it just looks like the contractor did not care and did nothing. Every time a Source Selection Official looks at the contractor’s CPARS on this contract for the next year (until they receive a new one), the evaluator will come away with a negative impression of the contractor’s ability to perform, making the contractor less likely to receive the award.

Monitoring and responding to CPARS and PPIRS assessments of their performance is the responsibility of the contractor. Don’t miss the opportunity to ensure that your past performance evaluations are as accurate, complete, and fair as possible!