GAO: Energy Department Gives Contractors High Ratings Despite Lack of Performance Data

A new government watchdog report shows that the Department of Energy remains on the government’s High Risk List for inadequate contractor management and oversight despite spending $200B on awards over the past decade and contracting changes. The Government Accountability Office issued the report on Tuesday highlighting the lack of proper reporting by DOE on the performance of its contractors.

The agency relies on the industry and academia for the management and operations of its facilities, particularly federal nuclear weapons laboratories, GAO said. However, DOE has been found providing less information on contractors’ cost performance in its Performance Evaluation Reports for fiscal year 2016. GAO said the PERs were not detailed, did not indicate significance of performance and applied only to specific activities.

“A key reason PERs did not include more cost performance information is that the DOE offices’ policies do not require specific assessments of cost performance or discuss how to ensure cost information is useful for future acquisition decision-making,” GAO said. 

Despite the lack of information, DOE still provided its contractors high performance ratings and more than 90 percent of performance incentives, the watchdog said. To improve data reporting, GAO recommends that DOE update its policies to require that PERs include quality information for overall assessment of contractor cost performance.