Questions and Answers - PCPG.xlsx

XLSX spreadsheet 57 KB Posted Aug 31, 2020

Attached to: U006--CH36 - Personalized Career Planning & Guidance Federal contract opportunity
Solicitation number: 36C10E20R0004
Issued by: Department of Veterans Affairs Veteran Benefits Administration Headquarters

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Other files attached to U006--CH36 - Personalized Career Planning & Guidance, newest first.
File	Type	Posted
36C10E20R0004 0002.docx	DOCX document	Aug 31, 2020
Number of Participants Per Distict 2018.xlsx	XLSX spreadsheet	Aug 31, 2020
Price-Cost Schedule_Pacific (R1).docx	DOCX document	Aug 31, 2020
Price-Cost Schedule_Northeast (R1).docx	DOCX document	Aug 31, 2020
Price-Cost Schedule_Continental (R1).docx	DOCX document	Aug 31, 2020
Price-Cost Schedule_Southeast (R1).docx	DOCX document	Aug 31, 2020
36C10E20R0004 0001.docx	DOCX document	Aug 31, 2020
Price-Cost Schedule_Northeast.docx	DOCX document	Aug 11, 2020
Price-Cost Schedule_Continental.docx	DOCX document	Aug 11, 2020
Past Performance Questionnaire.docx	DOCX document	Aug 11, 2020
PCPG_PWS Final Draft_ 08072020_.docx	DOCX document	Aug 11, 2020
Price-Cost Schedule_Southeast.docx	DOCX document	Aug 11, 2020
36C10E20R0004.docx	DOCX document	Aug 11, 2020
Past Performance Data Sheet.doc	DOC document	Aug 11, 2020
Price-Cost Schedule_Pacific.docx	DOCX document	Aug 11, 2020
Invoicing Instructions - CAATS Training Manual.pdf	PDF	Aug 11, 2020

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Sheet2

Row Labels	Count of #
ATO and Security Controls	6
Automated Process Deliverables	5
Automation Success	10
Background Investigations	1
CO Response	19
Disposition	1
Draft PWS	17
Error Handling	1
Example Business Process	1
Faxes	1
Future State	2
Handwriting	5
Incumbents	1
IT Infrastructure	7
Key personnel	3
Mail Intake	5
Mail Packet Index Information	1
Microforms	1
Multi-Vendor Award	1
Outward Facing Intake	1
Partners	1
Proposal Structure	2
Proposal Volume Structure	3
Resumes	6
Security	2
Service Level Requirements	3
Small Business Credit	1
Source Material Details	4
Teaming Agreements	3
Testing and Deployment	1
Timeline	3
VBA Employees	1
Volume Data	5
(blank)
Grand Total	124

Tracker

	#	Document
Referenced	Page #	Section/Topic	RFQ Sentence	Vendor Question	Response
	1					How does the Veteran become aware of and access these benefits?	A robust marketing campaign will ensure Veterans are aware of benefits. Access to the benefits will remain the same and will be detailed in the marketing.
	2					Who is the contact person within the continental region that will interface with the contractor and assign the referrals? Will this person process payments & do QA?	A team of program analysts within the Office of Transition and Economic Development in VA Central Office will interface with the contractors, assign referrals, QA and will work with the COR and CO to process payments.
	3					What method will be used to assign/make referrals?	CAATS (Centralized Administrative Accounting Transaction System)
	4					What is the estimated time duration between service member application and assignment to contractor?	Estimated time between application and referral to contractor is 4 business days.
	5					How are the cities within the districts selected as the locations for counseling sessions?	Cities selected have been identified as having a large number of GI Bill recipients.
	6					How is the contractor to resolve scheduling conflicts regarding location, if Veteran desires to have counseling in their residence and if the Veteran's residence is many hundreds of miles from the contractor office (i.e. Guymon, OK from Norman, OK) and it is cost prohibitive for the contractor to travel to the Veteran's home? The contract states the contractor must agree to the site of the counseling session. Can the contractor decilne to travel hundreds of miles to meet with a Veteran without incurring a contract penalty or deficiency?	If the Veteran's choice of location is outside of a 50-mile radius of the city hall of the identified city, the contractor can decline the referral without penalty.
	7					Does the contractor proposal need to include a description of the contractor's proposed QCP plan?	No. Please see the Addendum to 52.212-1 Instructions to Offerors, #8 for details regarding the evaluation criteria and submission requirements.
	8					Can the contractor select the instruments to evaluate the Veteran's interests, aptitudes and abilities, or does the government have a testing battery that they want utilized? If so, what tests do they want administered?	The contractor shall utilize industry standard tools that are necessary to evaluate the Veteran's interests, aptitudes, and abilities. Recent assessments can include, but are not limited to, assessments that the Veteran may have already completed while in the military or at a career resource center on a college campus.
	9					Has the government estimated the number of hours it will take to complete the interview, assessment and report write up for each of the deliverables? If so, what is the hourly estimate for ECA?	CLIN 0001 is estimated to be 2-4 hours per case; CLIN 0002 is estimated to be 1-3 hours per case; CLIN 0003 is estimated to be 1-3 hours per case; CLIN 0004 is estimated to be 1-2 hours per session. These same estimates apply to all option year CLINs.
	10					Is there a cap on number of hours that the veteran can receive for Employment Services? If so, how many? Same question for Education Services.	Employment Services and Education Services are billable per case; there is no cap on the number of hours a contractor spends with a Veteran to complete the services.
	11					Who authorizes Employment Services and Education Services if they are requested by the Veteran? How will that process work?	The Educational and Career Assessment, the Employment Services, and the Education Services are all authorized via the initial task order to the contractor. If the Veteran declines any service from the contractor, the contractor will indicate that on the report and the declined service will not be completed.
	12					Does the government have an estimate of veterans by district/office that are eligible for services? If so, could you please provide it?	Attached is a spreadsheet providing details on the number of participants per district from 2018.
	13					The PWS is quite nebulous about the government's plans for expanding service offices within the districts. What time frames/events are the government considering before adding additional cities for counseing? What amount of notice/time will be given to the contractor to make that change?	Any potential modifications to the contract will be done in accordance with VA regulations; contractors will be notified with sufficient time to allow for a reponse to the request to modify.
	14					Can the contractor bid on two cities or states within a Region?	A contractor must propose on one or more districts, not individual cities. For example, if a contractor proposes on the Northeast district, they must have the capability to provide services within a 50-mile radius of the city hall of all the following cities: Columbus, OH; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; La Plata, MD; Springfield, MO.
	15					In Volume 2, past performance, the offeror is not to exceed 6 pages (excluding PPQs). Are past performance data sheets included in the page count?	Yes, IAW the Addendum to 52.212-1 Instructions to Offerors, #8.3.3.3 the Offeror shall submit completed Past Performance Data Sheets on 3 recent and relevant contracts. Due to the fact that some areas of the Data Sheet requires a detailed explanation, the VA anticipated that two pages may be required per contract reference. So 3 Data Sheets at an anticipated 2 pages each, totals 6 pages.
	16					For the Employment Services CLIN, how many employment referrals is the conractor expected to provide?	There is not a set amount of referrals expected to be provided.
	17					For the Employment Services CLIN, does the government expect the contractor to provide a single resume or both a civilian and Federal style resume?	The resume assistance will be dependent on the Veteran's need.
	18					For Educational and Career Counseling services (Task 7.2.4), does the pricing document require pricing per a single counseling session?	Contractor should provide pricing per session for CLIN 0004, 1004, 2004, 3004, and 4004.
	19					Does the government have an estimated number of hours expected to be required per CLIN? If so, what are those estimates?	CLIN 0001 is estimated to be 2-4 hours per case; CLIN 0002 is estimated to be 1-3 hours per case; CLIN 0003 is estimated to be 1-3 hours per case; CLIN 0004 is estimated to be 1-2 hours per session. These same estimates apply to all option year CLINs.
	20					The pricing documents reference for each CLIN deliverables numbered 7.3.1, 7.3.2, 7.3.3 , 7.3.4 and 7.3.5. There is no reference to these deliverables using these numbers in the PWS. To what do these numbers refer?	The numbers referenced in the price/cost schedule have been updated to reflect the actual numbers in the PWS. The numbers refer to the specific deliverables for each task.
	21					What is a Knowledge Management Plan that is referenced for the base year in the price/cost schedules IAW Task 5? Does it require pricing data?	This has been removed from the Price/Cost schedule due to the fact that it was included in error.
	22	RFQ Document 36C10E20R0004	6	Access to Data and Repositories	“Upon award, the Contractor shall be required to obtain VA Personal Identity Verification (PIV) cards to acquire access to the VA data tools available to support analyses.”	Other than the VA’s authorized business intelligence tools listed in Section 3.4, please provide a list of any additional data tools available to support analyses?	There are no VA authorized business intelligence tools to be utilized for this contract.
	23	PCPG PWS Final Draft 08072020	5	7.0 SPECIFIC TASKS AND DELIVERABLES	The PDP shall be drafted by the Counselor and provided to the Veteran for review and input at each counseling session. The Veteran shall be provided a working copy of their PDP at the conclusion of each counseling session.	Does the VA expect the PDPs generated to be stored in a VBA system? If so which one?	The contractor will provide the PDP to the VA. The VA will upload the PDPs in VBMS.
	24	PCPG PWS Final Draft 08072020	5	7.1 COORDINATING AND SCHEDULING COUNSELING SESSIONS	Notice that in times of a pandemic and with VA authorization, HIPAA compliant virtual counseling sessions are available;	Is there a certain tool that the VA is requiring the contractor to use to do virtual counseling sessions? Eg. Zoom, Google meeting, Skype	Approved virtual counseling sessions must be completed via HIPAA compliance.
	25	PCPG PWS Final Draft 08072020	6	7.1 COORDINATING AND SCHEDULING COUNSELING SESSIONS	Upon appointment confirmation with Veteran, provide VA notice of scheduled meeting via email within one business day.	Is the contractor expected to encrypt emails mentioned in the PWS?	If an email contains Personally Identifiable Information (PII), refer to Section 11.0 of the PWS.
	26	RFQ Document 36C10E20R0004	6		Metrics are not mentioned in document	Is the contractor expected to report metrics to the VA based on the counseling?	The contractor is not expected to provide raw data of any assessments completed, but a summary of assessments should be noted on reports.
	27	PCPG PWS Final Draft 08072020	5&6	7.1 COORDINATING AND SCHEDULING COUNSELING SESSIONS	Complete the counseling session within 15 calendar days of when the task order was received	Is the contractor required to submit reports based of counseling appointments scheduled? How many at each location etc?	Only the final report is required for submission; the dates seen should be noted on on the report.
	28	PCPG PWS Final Draft 08072020		7.1 COORDINATING AND SCHEDULING COUNSELING SESSIONS		How will the contractor be notified when a counseling session needs to be scheduled? Is there a VBA system that is used for this purpose?	CAATS (Centralized Administrative Accounting Transaction System) will be utilized to generate a referral and VA Program Analysts from the Office of Transition and Economic Development will be available for communciation with the contractors.
	29	PCPG PWS Final Draft 08072020	1	7.1 COORDINATING AND SCHEDULING COUNSELING SESSIONS		How many counseling sessions does VBA schedule currently per day by site location and district?	The locations listed on the PWS are newly established sites, therefore there is no specific data to provide.
	30	RFQ Document 36C10E20R0004	1			Is there an incumbent? When does Period of Performance of current contract for these services end?	Five IDIQ contracts were awarded by the SAC in 2017 for Chapter 36 Services. The award information is as follows:

The Consolidated Rehab Group, Inc. (TCRG); VA119A-17-D-0049; Current IDIQ expiration date 5/11/2021.

The Consolidated Rehab Group, Inc. (TCRG); VA119A-17-D-0052; Current IDIQ expiration date 5/4/2021.

Sterling Medical Associates, Inc.; VA119A-17-D-0055; Current IDIQ expiration date 4/26/2021.

VR&E Service for Veterans, LLC; VA119A-17-D-0056; Current IDIQ expiration date 4/26/2021.

The Consolidated Rehab Group, Inc. (TCRG); VA119A-17-D-0057; Current IDIQ expiration date 4/26/2021.

NOTE: Individual Task Orders have varying experation dates.

32	RFQ Document 36C10E20R0004	10	11. EVALUATION OF CONTRACTOR PERFORMANCE	In accordance with FAR 42.1502, the Contractor's performance may be evaluated upon completion of each Task Order in excess of the simplified acquisition threshold. Interim evaluations may be prepared at any time during contract performance when determined to be in the best interest of the Government.	Will a CPARS rating be provided for each TO evaluation?	Due to the fact the IAW 7.1 the VBA CO will issue Task Orders for a Not-To-Exceed (NTE) amount, to cover the anticipated need for services for the district on an annual basis, CPARS evaluations will be conducted annually at the IDIQ level.
33	RFQ Document 36C10E20R0004	4	5. INFORMATION SYSTEM HOSTING, OPERATION, MAINTENANCE, OR USE	VA prohibits the installation and use of personally-owned or contractor/ subcontractor owned equipment or software on VA's network. If non-VA owned equipment must be used to fulfill the requirements of a contract, it must be stated in the service agreement, SOW or contract.	Will Govt furnish GFE to contactors?	No.
34	RFQ Document 36C10E20R0004	4	7.1 TASK ORDER PROCEDURES - GENERAL	A NTE TO does not bind the Government to order a specific amount of services but instead serves as a Government estimate of services anticipated to be ordered. Individual referrals are specific service “orders” and may be revoked at any time by the Government.	Will USG provide historical data on # of referrals by state/region/focus areas per day/week/month?

Is there a minimum number of referrals contractor can expect to receive in a day/week/month?

Maximum number of referrals? The locations listed on the PWS are newly established sites, therefore there is no specific data to provide.

No, there is not a minimum number of referrals the contractor can expect to receive in a day/week/month.

No, there is not a maximum number of referrals the contractor can expect to receive in a day/week/month.

35 RFQ Document 36C10E20R0004 5 7.3 The Contractor shall provide the results of all assessments in a written report to the TED COR within 30 calendar days after the initial counseling session, What if sessions extend for more than 30 days?

Are all deliverables expected to be determined and provided based on one session? If Veteran requests additional session, is the 30 day reporting requirement based on last session provided? Vet requests more sessions?	Delivery dates for final reports are within 30 days after initial counseling session; the contractor will meet with the Veteran the number of times it takes to provide the services. If the contractor needs an extension, the contractor will communicate the need to the VA.
	36	RFQ Document 36C10E20R0004	42	8.2	All TOs issued in accordance with multiple award contracts will be issued by delegated staff members within TED, to meet the specific district’s needs, on the following basis, which are listed in descending order of importance may be used: • Geography - The geographic location of the Contractor must be convenient to the Veteran, Servicemember or Dependent receiving the services; • Past Performance – The quality of the Contractor’s performance under this contract; • The Contractor’s price for the required services in accordance with the proposed price schedule.	Is contractors expected to have locations beyond the five focus area noted in PWS for each region? How will USG assess quality of performance?	No; however, the contractor is required to provide services for all cities listed within the specified district they wish to cover. Quality of Performance is addressed in section 9.0 in the PWS.
	37	RFQ Document 36C10E20R0004	4	E.6 52.212-2 EVALUATION—	The Government intends to award a single IDIQ contract for each of the four identified districts, however, reserves the 36C10E20R0004 Page 43 of 63 right to award to multiple offerors if it is determined to be in the best interest of the Government.	Is there a maximum number of awards expected for each district?	No.
	38	PCPG PWS Final Draft 08072020	4	4.0 Place of performance	The Contractor is required to provide services for all cities listed within a specified district. However, VA anticipates that its needs regarding the location of counseling sessions performed under this contract may change during the term of the contract. Consequently, VA reserves the right to seek, during the term of the contract, such changes to the place of performance of services provided under the contract.	How much notice will contractor be provided of a new location requirement for services? Will new service locations replace old locations or be in addition to those identified in Section 4.0 of PWS? Is there a maximum number of places of performance contractor is expected to provide?	Any potential modifications to the contract will be done in accordance with VA regulations; contractors will be notified with sufficient time to allow for a reponse to the request to modify. As indicated on the PWS, the contractor is required to provide services for all cities listed within the specified district they wish to cover.
	39	PCPG PWS Final Draft 08072020	4	5.0 COUNSELING FACILITIES	For purposes of this contract, “contractor-furnished facility” means a facility, and a meeting room therein, that the Contractor is responsible for providing the Counselor and Veteran	Must facilities provided be permanent or may Contractor use temporary space that is provided on demand?	The facilities may be permanent or temporary provided they meet the requirements outline in section 5.0 of the PWS.
	40	PCPG PWS Final Draft 08072020	9	10.1 Qualifications of Key Personnel	The Program Manager must have a Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts degree and at least one (1) year of experience in Technical Vocational Rehabilitation and management of rehabilitation services	Is Technical Vocational Rehabilitation qualification specific to VA or is experience in providing vocational rehabilitation services acceptable?	Technical Vocational Rehabilitation qualifications/experience are not required to be specific to the VA.
	41	PCPG PWS Final Draft 08072020	5	7.2 Resources for Assessment	7.2.3 Education Services: Includes labor market analysis, identification of training facilities, navigation of admissions process, and review of VA benefits	Will USG provide any information on resources available to support Veteran, both in VA and outside VA?	Available VA resources will be provided.
	42	PCPG PWS Final Draft 08072020	6	7.2	7.2.1: …information shall be provided on VA benefits and transition assistance, as applicable;

7.2.3: … Includes labor market analysis, identification of training facilities, navigation of admissions process, and review of VA benefits	Will VA provide VA knowledge resources in providing education and employment options to Veterans? Will VA expect Contractor to use VA knowledge resources, or provide their own?	Available VA resources will be provided, but the Contractor should not rely on those resources.
	43	RFQ Document 36C10E20R0004	35-36	8.3.2.3: Staffing Plan and Key Personnel	…The Offeror shall submit to VBA their planned organizational chart for the first 180 days of performance. The organizational chart shall include all planned positions with the named resources (including and directly identifying subcontractor resources) who will be working on those positions for the first 180 days	Is there a minimum number of counselors that VA expects contractor to name in the proposal for each region/ focus location?	There is not a minimum number of counselors that VA expects a contractor to name in the proposal for each region/focus location; however, the contractor is required to provide services for all cities listed within a specified district.
	44	RFQ Document 36C10E20R0004	36	Section 10.1 of PWS

and

Section 8.3.2.3 of RFP Section 8.3.2.3: Provide a one-page summary of the résumé and qualifications for each key personnel as identified in PWS. Please be advised that key personnel résumé and qualifications shall be incorporated into the awarded contract. In the event key personnel is not a current employee a signed letter of intent is required.

PWS section 10.1: Contractor shall provide to the VA within 10 calendar days of contract award date:

Résumés, which cannot exceed a total of two pages in length per person proposed, which must provide information on education and experience as appropriate; There appears to be a discrepancy in the solicitation that in Section 10.1 of PWS, USG asks for resumes 10 day after award, but in section 8.3.2.3 USG requires offerors to provide one page summaries in proposal of for each person and a task organization with names of all counselors.Please reconcile contradictory requirements. There is not a discrepancy. Section 8.3.2.3 requires offerors to provide one-page "summaries" with their proposal, while Section 10.1 requires that the contractor provide full resume 10 days after award.

File details come from the government source that posted it. Updated Aug 31, 2020.