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.
Report File
Date Issued
Submitting OIG
Department of Housing and Urban Development OIG
Other Participating OIGs
Department of Housing and Urban Development OIG
Agencies Reviewed/Investigated
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Report Number
2023-BO-0002
Report Description
Report Type
Audit
Agency Wide
Yes
Number of Recommendations
0
Questioned Costs
$0
Funds for Better Use
$0
Open Recommendations
This report has 1 open recommendations.
Recommendation Number | Significant Recommendation | Recommended Questioned Costs | Recommended Funds for Better Use | Additional Details | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2023-BO-0002-001-E | No | $0 | $0 | ||
We recommend that the Chief Procurement Officer update HUD's field service manager contract monitoring plan and FSM qualitative monitoring databases used to monitor contractor performance to align with the QASP and contractual requirements as noted in recommendation 1G below. |