HUD Could Improve Its Field Service Management Quality Assurance Surveillance Plans

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of the Chief Procurement Officer’s use of its quality assurance surveillance plan (QASP) for its Atlanta Homeownership Center field service management (FSM) housing contracts. We initiated the audit to support HUD’s priority on increasing efficiency in procurement. An assessment of HUD’s use of its QASP, as part of its 3.10 FSM 5-year contract solicitation, could help HUD improve its overall effectiveness in contract administration. Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD effectively administered QASPs for its FSM contracts to assist in achieving HUD’s mission. HUD’s Atlanta Homeownership Center did not effectively develop and implement a QASP for the six FSM contracts reviewed. It did not (1) include all contract performance tasks requiring surveillance in its monitoring plans, (2) sufficiently review and accurately rate contractor performance, or (3) consistently document contractor performance in the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS). These conditions occurred because HUD lacked controls to ensure that the QASP was used for contractor performance monitoring. Instead, HUD implemented a field service manager contract monitoring plan to measure contractor performance in a freestanding database, which did not include all performance standard tasks required for monitoring and did not align with the contracts’ acceptable quality levels of performance measurement. As a result, HUD lacked the structure necessary to ensure that contractors were held accountable for their performance in accordance with contractual requirements. We recommend that HUD’s Chief Procurement Officer (1) direct the contracting officers to update the QASP to include all minimum performance requirements and oversee the implementation of the QASP with HUD’s FSM contracts, (2) require the contracting officers to timely complete CPARS reports and submissions to the governmentwide system for use by all Federal agencies, (3) require all staff involved in FSM contracts’ oversight to maintain required documentation to support the contracts, and (4) require the contracting officers to designate contracting officer representatives in a timely manner. We also recommend that the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Single Family Housing ensure that contracting officer representatives (1) are involved with the development, implementation, and documentation of the FSM QASP to monitor contractor performance; (2) ensure that ratings are aligned with the contract; and (3) complete CPARS in a timely manner.