Federal Contractor Evaluation System – CPARS

When you are looking for an electrician to work in your house, how do you ensure it will be quality work and up to code? When you decide to purchase products online, what do you scan? The reviews! Does the service or product have 5 stars or 1 star? What is written about their service or performance? The same principles apply to the work your business does in government contracting. Evaluations are an important part of choosing which company will get a government contract, regardless of if you are a prime contractor or subcontractor, working in the government, (federal, state, local) or private sector.

Evaluations still matter in today’s market and have the potential to matter even more in the future when everything stabilizes, and more contracts are issued. The Contract Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) is a Federal government evaluation system known to be strict and difficult to understand. The principles that apply to this evaluation system are unlike other evaluation systems so it is crucial that you understand how to maintain good past performance reviews in CPARS.

Here are some suggestions to help you navigate the world of CPARS evaluations:

• Prepare. Track and prepare objective information and fasts so that you can present this information when requested or to back up your write up or rebuttal. For example, “we conducted 34 safety meetings” or “out of 450 submittals, only two were late”.
• Take action. Don’t rely on the government or a prime contractor to take care of you.  Take care of yourself by following the contract, identifying actions that require written approval, and putting together a plan for you and your team.
• Provide context. If a situation occurs and is reflected in your performance evaluation, take the time to explain what happened, how your corrected the situation, what you learned, and what action you will take to make sure it does not happen again.
• Get involved. Work closely with the government/prime/agency individuals who are filling out your performance evaluation. Ask what you can do to help them – what data can you provide to speed up completion of the evaluation? If you complete the project and leave the work site, chances are the evaluation will go to the bottom of the pile on someone’s desk. Work with your government team and take an active part in the preparation of your evaluation.
• Be proactive. And do this early – do not wait until the last week or even the last month of your project before you begin to work on your evaluation.

A Contracting Officer in the Federal Government cannot award a project to a contractor with a low CPARS regardless of price, unless the contractor has explained what happened and how they intend to prevent the situation from happening again. The contractor must pass the responsibility requirements demonstrating that they are a low performance risk. If your evaluations show you are at a performance risk with bad evaluations, other contractors will receive the award despite a higher price. A performance risk is no longer good value.

Our hope is that these tips can help you stabilize your business and focus on staying on track as we navigate changes in the Federal space.  But you don’t have to navigate this alone. Your APEX Accelerator Counselors are here to help. Please reach out to your Norcal APEX Accelerator counselor for assistance or apply for services today!