Service contracts provide an opportunity for contractors and government personnel to get close. Contractors get to be part of the team and take pride and ownership in the work that they are supporting. Working day to day in the office with government personnel sometimes blurs lines and contractors find themselves facing a difficult choice. Support my “customer” or say no and risk the wrath of an unhappy customer. My advice to all contractors is to take the risk of saying “no, its outside the scope of my contract”.
One of the basic concepts of contracts is the “Cardinal Change”. A cardinal change occurs when the government effects an alteration in the work so drastic that it effectively requires the contractor to perform duties materially different from those originally bargained for. But what is “drastic”? Is adding another person under a job category an increase in scope? Is adding another job category not originally listed in scope? Doing work on a project not originally listed in scope? This is the slippery slope that many contractors can find themselves on trying to help their customer.
Contractors are well within their rights to say no to work outside the scope of their contract. In fact, it is in your best interest to say no and inform your customer that the work they are asking for is outside the scope of the contract. Frustration over the length of time to process contract modifications will lead many a customer to ask for a contractor to support a request a fix the contract later. That is dangerous for two reasons. First the change may not be in scope and second even within scope there may increased costs that are not captured in your contract.
I can best illustrate a bad decision by a contractor to support a request for support by example. A contractor was hired to provide support personnel for a testing facility. The contract was clear that the personnel were to help with data collection and analysis. However, in a rush to get facilities ready to support a test program, government personnel directed the contractor to perform physical modifications to the facility to “support” the testing. This was clearly outside the scope of the effort contracted for and when discovered fell under the rules of an “unauthorized commitment”. Going through a ratification of an unauthorized commitment is not a pleasant process.
Another situation where the result was not as bad is a great illustration of how contractors can find themselves getting on the wrong side of a contracting officer. A contractor was hired to provide training and support on a system that was going to be used at a school. The system was never delivered but the contractor and the government personnel at the school, without talking to the contracting officer, agreed that the duties of the contracted personnel be changed to support the whole school. The contractor did not want to lose the work, so he went ahead and did the work. When discovered that the personnel where not doing the support for that system, the contracting officer had no choice but to process a modification to the current contract and initiate a replacement effort to support that work before all the options had been exercised.
As I said earlier the continued growth in the use of contractors in the Federal workplace can blur the lines for both government and contractor personnel. It is important for contractors to remember that while they are part of the team, the rules are different for them. So, know your contract SOW and don’t be afraid to push back when asked to do something outside the scope of your contract.