Contractor Responsibility Determination by the Small Business Administration and Department of Defense Contracting Officers: A Comparison and Case Study

摘要

The Small Business Administration is authorized to certify small businesses as competent with respect to all the elements of responsibility for the exclusive purpose of performing a single government contract. The SBA issues the business a Certificate of Competency (COC) which overrides the contracting officer's determination of nonresponsibility and requires award of that specific contract to the firm. The guidance contained in the SBA's Certificate of Competency Standard Operating Procedure, SOP 60 04 3, was compared with the guidance contained in the Federal Acquisition Regulation, and the Defense Logistics Agency Manuals 8300.1 and 8200.2 used by the Defense Contract Administration Service for conducting preaward surveys on behalf of Department of Defense contracting officers. The COC appeal files at the Offices of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization of the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force were reviewed to gain an understanding of the quantity of Air Force appeals undertaken. One COC appeal undertaken by the Air Force on behalf of an Air Force Logistics Command Air Logistics Center contracting officer and subsequently lost was selected for a case study analysis in this thesis.