Privacy Act Request Fulfillment Statement of Objectives.pdf

The DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

Office of Information & Technology (OIT)

Product Delivery Service (PDS)

“Unified Discovery and Disclosure (UDD) Platform” RFI is separate and distinct from this

“Privacy Act Request Fulfillment Services” RFI.

Statement of Objectives (SOO)

1. Purpose The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), Office of

Mission Support (OMS) seeks innovative commercial solutions to provide an end-to-end Privacy

Act Request Fulfillment (PARF) managed service supporting Veterans and authorized requestors. The Government is evaluating acquisition structures that may use either a single end-to-end production provider or multiple qualified production providers operating against common

Government-owned business rules, interfaces, quality standards, and oversight controls. The future acquisition should maximize meaningful competition, continuity, portability, automation, and accountability while allowing OMS/CSD to focus increasingly on Government-retained policy, oversight, surveillance, exception governance, and other functions that must or should remain under Government control. This SOO supports market research and future acquisition planning and describes desired outcomes rather than prescribing an incumbent process, product, staffing model, vendor platform, or implementation architecture.

2. Background VBA receives and processes requests submitted under the Privacy Act of 1974 for records maintained in VBA systems of records. Privacy Act responses may be used by Veterans and authorized requestors to support benefits claims, appeals, healthcare coordination, legal proceedings, employment, and personal record needs. Delays in Privacy Act fulfillment can affect Veterans and other authorized requestors who need these records to pursue time-sensitive benefits, legal, employment, or personal record needs.

The current environment is a Government-controlled, multi-provider service ecosystem.

Government personnel perform policy, oversight, workflow, quality, release, and closure activities while multiple contractor-supported capabilities provide substantial production support, automation, records retrieval, redaction, document management, quality control, packaging, and electronic delivery. Current VA contractual arrangements demonstrate PARF-related production capacity outside the primary PARF service, while Government-designated enterprise document intake and routing capabilities support modular integration with external processing services.

Current operations also demonstrate risk-based review approaches in which routine Government page-level review can be reduced as contractor performance is validated. These arrangements provide evidence for evaluating both a consolidated single-provider managed service and a multi-provider production model, while highlighting the need for Government-owned interfaces, portable data, common rules, and clear allocation of responsibility.

3. Mission and Business Need Provide a modernized PARF capability that gives Veterans and authorized requestors timely, secure access to records maintained in VBA systems of records while shifting the maximum legally and operationally appropriate portion of routine production work to qualified contractor-managed services. The future service should reduce backlog and cycle time, expand efficient processing across request types, maintain high-accuracy redaction and release quality, reduce redundant Government and contractor manual tasks, handle volume spikes, improve cost control, and preserve traceable, auditable workflows. OMS/CSD should retain policy ownership, Government surveillance, qualification/certification authority, privacy oversight, exception governance, and other Government-retained decisions. The acquisition should support either a single end-to-end provider or multiple interoperable providers without requiring redesign of the

Government control framework.

4. Scope The contractor(s) shall provide managed PARF production services. Depending on the acquisition structure selected, the Government may award a single end-to-end managed service or establish multiple qualified providers capable of receiving and processing Government-routed workload under common rules, interfaces, security requirements, quality gates, reporting standards, and transition/portability requirements. The scope may include the following service areas:

• Request intake, routing, and interpretation.

• Identity, requester authority, and request-scope validation support.

• Workflow automation and configurable business rules.

• AI-assisted and rules-based document classification, extraction, and redaction support.

• Human-in-the-loop and Government-in-the-loop review workflows, where appropriate.

• Records identification and retrieval from Government systems and repositories.

• Privacy Act/FOIA redaction, review, quality assurance, and defect remediation.

• Response package preparation, secure delivery, notification, and records retention.

• Cloud-based managed services, system sustainment, cybersecurity support, and ATO support.

• Systems integration with current and future VA enterprise capabilities.

• Operations support, help-desk coordination, training, change management, reporting, analytics, and continuous process improvement.

• Transition-in, transition-out, knowledge transfer, and production stabilization support.

5. Desired Outcomes The Government seeks solutions that produce measurable improvements across operational, technical, business, customer, and compliance outcomes.

Outcome area Desired outcome

Operational Reduce processing time, improve throughput, reduce backlog, improve consistency across request types, scale during workload surges, and reduce manual Government effort.

Technical Support secure API-based integration, configurable workflow orchestration, automation, modern cloud hosting where appropriate, interoperability with VBA systems, and rapid enhancement cycles.

Quality Increase automation while maintaining quality, enable risk-based review, reduce missed redactions, manage co-mingled records, and support objective quality evidence.

Customer experience Produce validated release packages, support Government-approved delivery channels, provide clear notifications, collect customer feedback, track access status when delivery data is available, and support requestors who do not access released records. Contractor-provided portal distribution should be treated as optional if a GFE or

VA.gov-hosted portal becomes available.

Business Improve price competitiveness, reduce total cost of ownership, enable modular service offerings, and provide pricing aligned to complexity and value rather than only volume.

Compliance Maintain Privacy Act, HIPAA, records management, Section 508, cybersecurity, ATO, audit, and VA policy compliance.

Demand reduction and evidence transparency

Reduce avoidable Privacy Act/FOIA requests by enabling clearer communications, better request scoping, duplicate/repeat-request management, and future self-service or VA.gov-enabled access to eligible records where authorized. Completed-response portal distribution should remain optional to preserve the ability to transition to a

GFE portal.

6. Performance Objectives The future contract should support performance-based management using objective metrics, SLAs, and a Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan (QASP) focused on outcomes rather than prescribed processes. Performance objectives should address timeliness, accuracy, quality, customer satisfaction, automation effectiveness, security, system availability, continuous improvement, cost efficiency, workload portability, continuity, and successful operation under the selected single-provider or multi-provider model. Quality-gate mechanisms should permit the

Government to reduce routine review for demonstrated high-performing workflows while retaining sampling, audit, recertification, and reversion authority.

7. Operating Constraints Solutions shall accommodate applicable laws, policies, systems, and enterprise requirements, including:

• Privacy Act requirements, FOIA requirements, HIPAA Privacy Rule requirements when applicable, and handling of PII, PHI, and CUI.

• Federal and VA records management requirements, including auditability of release decisions and retention artifacts.

• VA cybersecurity policies, Assessment and Authorization (A&A) and ATO requirements, applicable NIST/FIPS requirements, encryption, least privilege, and role-based access control. Respondents should identify the authorization status of proposed cloud service offerings where relevant and describe how the solution will satisfy applicable VA security and authorization requirements before operational use. Existing

FedRAMP authorization shall not be treated as a prerequisite for competition or award unless expressly required by applicable Government direction.

• Section 508 accessibility and secure requester authentication.

• Existing and future VA enterprise architecture, Government Furnished Information, interfaces, APIs, repositories, identity services, notification services, BI/reporting services, and records-management systems.

• Government ownership of policy decisions, disclosure determinations, and inherently governmental release approvals.

8. Innovation and Continuous Improvement The Government is not seeking a one-for-one replacement of the incumbent solution. The future service should simplify workflows, reduce unnecessary document production, increase automation, improve scalability, provide transparent quality gates, support rapid deployment of approved changes, improve customer experience, reduce implementation risk, and enable future modernization without requiring major redesign. Modernization should also consider ways to reduce the volume of Privacy Act/FOIA requests that arrive to VA when Veterans or authorized representatives only need visibility into records VA already has, a copy of known low-risk records, or confirmation that records are being used for a claim.

9. Basis for Future Performance Measurement The Government intends to develop a QASP based on measurable business outcomes, objective quality evidence, sampling and certification logic, customer outcomes, security performance, and cost efficiency. Metrics should allow the Government to evaluate both individual transaction performance and system-level modernization progress.