A04 23R0302_JA_Redacted.pdf

CUI

`DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

WASHINGTON HEADQUARTERS SERVICES

1155 DEFENSE PENTAGON

WASHINGTON, DC 20301-1155

July 26, 2023 Control No. 2023-WHS-342

JUSTIFICATION FOR

OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION (JOFOC) UNDER FEDERAL

ACQUISITION REGULATION FAR SUBPART 6.3

1. AGENCY AND CONTRACTING ACTIVITY: The Department of Defense (DoD), Washington Headquarters Services, Acquisition Directorate (WHS/AD), Enterprise Office of the Secretary of Defense Division (EOSD) on behalf of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security (OUSD(I&S)) Human Capital Management Office (HCMO).

2. DESCRIPTION OF ACTION: HCMO has a continuing need for Analysis, Planning, and IT Support required for the advancement of Human Capital Management Activities within the organization. These services are currently supported under Contract GS02F0183X Task Order HQ003418F0066, which was awarded to Veterans Enterprise Technology Solutions (VETS). The current contract expires on July 31, 2023, and the Government intends to award a sole source bridge contract to VETS for continuity of services while the Government works to award the long-term, follow-on contract. WHS/AD intends to award the follow-on contract by December 2023. The bridge contract will be awarded as a Firm-Fixed- Price contract type with a total estimated value of approximately with a potential price variance of +/- 5%, using FY23 Operation and Maintenance Funds. The period of performance will consist of a five-month period of performance from August 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023.

3. DESCRIPTION OF SUPPLIES/SERVICES: HCMO has a requirement to obtain Analysis, Planning, and IT Support required for the advancement of Human Capital Management Activities. The Contractor shall provide all personnel, equipment, supplies, facilities, transportation, tools, materials, supervision, and other items and non-personal services necessary to perform services as defined in this Performance Work Statement (PWS), except for those items specified as government-furnished property and services.

The Contractor shall perform to the standards in this contract. The contractor’s performance and deliverables shall support development of strategic plans, program and policy development and changes, implementation guidance and assessments, support workforce development and human capital working groups, and provide services to support programmatic reviews, analysis of collected data, and presentation of analysis and assessments.

4. AUTHORITY CITED: This action is authorized under provisions of 10 U.S.C. 2304(c), FAR 6.302- 1(a)(2)(iii)(B), "Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements." More specifically, “For DoD…services may be deemed to be available only from the original source in the case of follow-on contracts for the continued provision of highly specialized services when it is likely that award to any other source would result in [u]nacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency’s requirements.” HCMO requires continued, specialized support from the incumbent in order to fulfill its requirement for analysis, planning, and IT support services. If not, the Government would experience unacceptable delays in acquiring the necessary support for the on-going human capital initiatives within the Defense Intelligence and Security Enterprise.

5. REASON FOR AUTHORITY CITED: Losing the support and expertise of the VETS contract team would result in incalculable delays that would derail or halt progress in which they provide support to the HCMO Office. HCMO resides in (OUSD(I&S) and is responsible for the Defense Civilian Intelligence Personnel System (DCIPS). DCIPS is a personnel management system that supports an approximately member workforce consisting of civilian personnel. HCMO supports the Defense Intelligence and Security Enterprise, the Department of Defense, Congress, and works with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in support of human capital initiatives affecting the broader Intelligence Community (IC). HCMO is responsible for oversight of all human capital functions and initiatives within the Defense Intelligence and Security Enterprise. There are currently a number human capital functions and initiatives that are ongoing where a break in continued service from VETS would disrupt progress being made as listed below.

TRANSITION TO PERFORMANCE DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM: HCMO is in the process of changing the enterprise wide Performance Management System (PMS) to a Performance Development System (PDS). This change requires revisions to current policy, Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) as well as the development of a communication strategy and implementation plan. Currently, the contract personnel have been instrumental with coordination of all corresponding policies as well as key in communicating necessary technology changes for the HRIS to implement the new PDS. Additionally, much of the changes require training of enterprise components on how to use the new fields in the HRIS; and the contract personnel have been responsible for creation and dissemination of training for component use of the fields.

TARGET LOCAL MARKET SUPPLEMENT FOR SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY

ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICS: HCMO has recently provided special salary rates for certain work roles in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). The VETS team has worked to create the corresponding STEM pay schedule and is working with Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) to ensure that the correct pay tables are uploaded to the HRIS to allow the components to effect the new pay for the specific STEM work roles. Upon DMDC uploading the pay tables, the VETS team will perform data analysis to ensure that the correct pay schedules were applied to all affected work roles.

IMPLEMENTATION OF NEW HUMAN RESOURCE INFORMATION SYSTEM: The DoD is in the process of implementing a new HRIS for all of the Department. The Department is transitioning from Defense Civilian Personnel Data System (DCPDS) to Defense Civilian Human Resources Management System (DCHRMS). Because the Defense Intelligence and Security Enterprise has many 10 U.S.C flexibilities, the DCHRMS will need to ensure that our enterprise systems requirements are met. The VETS team has been working with the DCHRMS developers to ensure that by the time DCHRMS is effective it will be able to house and implement DCIPS requirements which are significantly different that the rest of the Department.

DATA CALLS AND ANALYSIS: Each year HCMO has to answer a myriad of data calls that are mandated by congress, ODNI or the Department. Additionally, HCMO has to also stand by to ready the Under Secretary with data for any congressional inquiries on human capital initiatives happening in the Defense Intelligence and Security Enterprise. At this time, the VETS team runs data calls via the DoD Configuration Management Information System (CMIS) and provides analysis and visualizations on workforce and human capital initiatives. In preparation for these data calls, the

VETS team builds scripts and macros to more effective source and align the data so there is the clearest picture of the current status and trends of human capital initiatives within the Defense Intelligence and Security enterprise.

MANPOWER EVALUTION REQUESTS: Talent within the DoD is highly sought after by other federal government organizations as well as places of business in industry. The process to approve any civilian or military personnel to go on a detail outside of the their home agency requires coordination of approval at times all the up to the Executive Secretary. The coordination process along with the compiling of packages for these detail requires attention to detail, concise writing and use of network across the Department. At this time, HCMO utilizes VETS to shepherd paperwork for the approval of detail of DoD personnel outside of the Department.

GLOBAL FORCE MANAGEMENT DATA INITIATIVE (GFM DI): The Defense

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999 required the Secretary of Defense to implement a comprehensive readiness system capable of accurately and objectively measuring readiness to support execution of the National Security Strategy (NSS), National Military Strategy (NMS) and Title 10 responsibilities. This system must be able to measure readiness in a timely manner to ensure responsiveness to support National Command Authority (NCA) review of crucial national security issues. The GFM DI provides a common format for representing force structure authorizations and manning across DoD personnel, readiness, planning and finance systems. It also uniquely identifies authorized billets/positions, crews, equipment authorization, and chain of command links which enable integration of data from disparate sources. At this time, VETS support on HCMO is responsible for collection and uploading of billet information in the readiness system by working on two different classified systems.

ADVANA IMPLEMENTATION: ADVANA, a mashup of the words “Advancing Analytics,” is a

Defense Department platform that pulls data from hundreds of business systems to make it discoverable, understandable, and usable for advanced analytics. The platform organizes data and depicts it in filterable dashboards. It also provides decision makers and analysts access to enterprise data and structured analytics in a scalable, reliable, and secure environment. The Deputy Secretary of Defense has required that all components within DoD will participate on this platform with the ingesting of appropriate data. HCMO has been working with the ADVANA to build out an interface that will be allow HCMO equities to be visualized in ADVANA. The VETS team in HCMO has been the point of contact to express HCMO’s requirements as well as the builder of the HCMO interface for ADVANA on both unclassified and classified environments.

Based on the initiatives mention above, the existing VETS contract provides critical support to the daily operations of HCMO. The VETS contract team are embedded with federal HCMO staff and have special and current knowledge about the human capital program and initiatives happening in the Defense Intelligence and Security Enterprise. A sole source bridge award to VETS avoids unacceptable delays in fulfilling the operational objectives of the HCMO and adverse impact on the aforementioned initiatives while the government works the acquisition for the long-term contract that is scheduled for award in December 2023.

In addition, HCMO OUSD(I&S) relies heavily on a multisector workforce comprised of Government civilian and VETS contractor personnel. At this time of HCMO’s Personnel and Readiness Division staff is contractor personnel. Of the contractor personnel, are associated with VETS contract number HQ0034-18-F-0066, which expires on July 31, 2023. Failure to extend services and award this bridge contract to the incumbent, VETS, poses significant risk to HCMO’s ability to effectively perform its mission, as loss of this contract and the personnel would result in approximately a loss of of the personnel supporting Personnel and Readiness Division in HCMO. The expert functional and historical knowledge of the VETS personnel is key to HCMO being able to perform its mission, while the Government work to execute a long term contract.

Furthermore, as previously mentioned, HCMO is responsible for being responsive to the Defense Intelligence and Security Enterprise, the Department of Defense, Congress, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Often times being responsive is tied to providing data or solutions in a prescribed method by a set deadline. When the HCMO misses a deadline or inadvertently overlooks an inquiry, effecting human capital oversight in a consistent manner becomes strained. This can result in performance of unfair business human capital practices or uncheck violations resulting in an enterprise component being out of compliance with federal statutes and regulations. The current contract team has a depth and breathe of knowledge that cannot be easily replaced or duplicated without a significant gap in services. Without the specialized support of the VETS contract personnel, significant experience and support will be lost jeopardizing HCMO’s our ability to meet deadlines and answer inquiries from Congress, the Defense Intelligence and Security Enterprise components, ODNI, and broader DoD. The potential for losing this expertise poses a serious and significant risk to HCMO effecting is mission today.

6. EFFORTS TO OBTAIN COMPETITION: On July 13, 2023, WHS/AD issued a “Notice of Intent to Sole Source,” on SAM.GOV. The Notice of Intent was posted and closed on July 19, 2023. Based on the Notice of Intent, no vendor challenged the bridge contract to VETS. The Government is currently working on a long-term contract and anticipates award in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024.

7. FAIR AND REASONABLE COST DETERMINATION: The Government will ensure that final negotiated price is fair and reasonable in accordance with FAR 15.404-1, “Proposal Analysis Techniques.” The Government will compare proposed prices set forth by VETS to historical prices paid by the Government under the current contract no. HQ0034-18-F-0066. The Government will also compare proposed prices with the Independent Government Cost Estimate prepared for the bridge contract.

8. MARKET RESEARCH: Market Research has been limited to the notice of intent described in paragraph

6, above. WHS/AD will solicit this effort as a sole source bridge contract in order to maintain continuity of support being provided to HCMO. The five-month bridge contract will be issued as the most efficient and logical strategy and solution to the Government which will avoid unacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency’s requirement and potential gap in performance of critical services of HCMO.

9. OTHER FACTS: Due to the irreparable damage that may result to HCMO's mission should services be interrupted for five months; a sole source contract must be negotiated with VETS. VETS has been critically instrumental to the success and continuation of HCMO's mission.

10. INTERESTED SOURCES: As discussed above, no vendors challenged or demonstrated interest to the Notice of Intent to issue a follow-on bridge contract to VETS for continuation of services for support to human capital initiatives in HCMO.

11. ACTIONS TO INCREASE COMPETITION: HCMO’s mission cannot afford any interruption of services or any down time as a result of a learning curve should another contractor be considered.