On September 6th, the Department of Defense, the General Services Administration (GSA), and NASA proposed a new rule to help with the collection and evaluation of contractors’ past performance.

The proposed rule will expand the use of the government’s Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS).  Additional criteria such as quality of service, cost, SBA subcontracting efforts, and general business relations will be included.  In addition, any negative past performance such as termination, defective cost and pricing, and late payments will be noted.

All of the evaluation criteria will help federal agencies more effectively evaluate contractors on future procurements and standardize the evaluation process.

The need for this rule arose out of comments received about another rule published last year.  That rule was published to address recommendations by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) about how contractor past performance is handled and maintained at the federal level.

The proposed rule can be found at 77 FR 54864 and written comments should be submitted by November 5, 2012.