Mrs. Charlotte B. Spann, Director

Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization
Department of the Interior

C Street between Eighteenth & Nineteenth Sts., NW
Washington, D.C. 20240

Dear Mrs. Spann:

At the close of my oversight subcommittee hearing held on December 4, 1979 on government agency compliance with the procurement provisions of P.L. 95-507, I indicated that I would be submitting further questions to each of the witnesses.

Kindly provide

attached questions by

to the Subcommittee
January 4, 1980.

responses to the

If you have any questions concerning this request, please contact Mr. George Neidich of my subcommittee staff at (202) 225-9321.

Sincerely,

JOHN J. LaFALCE
CHAIRMAN

1. GSA in its testimony before the subcommittee stated that it intended all civilian agencies to start compliance with section 211 of P.L. 95-507 as of April 10, 1978. As of what date is your agency undertaking a review of solicitations? If not April 10, please explain why not?

2.

Please describe the report you were requested to submit to SBA at the conclusion of FY 1979 on the extent of participation by small business in procurement contracts let by your agency. If your agency has not submitted such report, when will this be done?

3. Please describe your performance in meeting your agency's goals for participation by small business in subcontracts as required by section 211 of P.L. 95-507. Has your agency and the SEA failed to agree on established goals? If so, has this disagreement been submitted to OFPP for final determination?

Describe what studies or surveys your agency has conducted to determine the extent of contractor's compliance with the "best efforts" subcontracting clause. Have any guidelines been established for making this determination?

4.

5. What incentives has your agency provided to encourage maximum subcontracting opportunities as required by section 211 of the law?

6.

As of the date of your response to this letter, describe your compliance with the subcontracting provisions mandated by section 211 of P.L. 95-507 including (a) the number of deficient solicitations and contracts you have remedied since December 4, 1979, (b) the number of solicitations issued since December 4, 1979 which are deficient, and (c) the total number and dollar amount of prime contracts awarded since December 4, 1979 which do not contain required subcontracting plans.

Thank you for your letter of December 21, 1979 in which you asked for
responses to specific questions supplementing the information you
gathered in the December 4th hearings. The Department of the Interior's
responses are enclosed. I certainly hope that this information will
be helpful in your efforts to ensure compliance by Federal departments
and agencies with Public Law 95-507. Interior intends to comply fully
both the spirit and the letter of the law. If clarification of the
enclosed responses is required, please have your staff contact me directly,
or Mr. Horsley of my staff, on 343-4907.

Question 1:

The Department of the Interior, Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, issued a notice in the May 24, 1979 Federal Register modifying subpart 14-1.13 of the Interior Procurement Regulations and requiring Interior's contracting offices to comply with the April 20, 1979 regulations issued by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

Question 2:

After discussions with Mr. Bernard Kulik of SBA, I understand that the report referenced in your second question was never requested by SBA. We will develop and submit such a report as soon as SBA defines the required format and data items.g

Question 3:

Interior's goal for minority subcontracting for FY-79 was $35,856,000. Our actual minority subcontract awards in FY-79 were $40,879,000.

Even though SBA has not questioned the preliminary FY-80 goals which we
submitted, we have held a series of further internal discussions in order
to revise these preliminary goals upward. A final set of goals has now been
submitted to SBA for their review and comments.

Question 4:

Interior has not yet devoted any significant effort to studying compliance with the "best efforts" subcontracting clause and has not attempted to establish guidelines for this program. Our compliance efforts are now a function of the Inspector General and have largely been directed toward validating the minority status of contractors. From this point on, these efforts will concentrate primarily on compliance with mandatory clauses and on internal compliance reviews.

Question 5:

Interior is developing a list of contract projects to serve as pilots for use of the incentive contracting provisions of section 211. These pilots will contain dollar incentives and a comprehensive report on our experiences with these provisions will be forwarded to OFPP in June 1980.

Question 6:

a) One of the four deficient solicitations cited by Interior at the December 4, 1979 hearing was corrected prior to the hearing. The other three had already progressed to the contract stage and represented three of the four deficient contracts cited.

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Of the four deficient contracts, two have been modified to include approved plans. A third has been studied further and confirmed by the Contracting Officer to have no subcontracting opportunity. The remaining contract now has discussions in progress and should be modified to include an approved subcontracting plan within 30-60 days.

(b)&(c) We have not identified any solicitations on contracts issued since December 4, 1979 which should have included subcontracting plan requirements but did not. We have developed a system for quarterly reviews of all appropriate contract awards and will use this vehicle to ensure compliance by our contracting offices with section 211 requirements.