Officials concerned about oversight of task orders

The Acquisition Advisory Panel authorized under the Services Acquisition Reform Act of 2003 has expressed serious concerns about agencies using task and delivery orders to conduct major acquisitions of complex services without reviews.In a report released last year, the panel recommended that the Office of Federal Procurement Policy permit companies to protest multiple-award contract task and delivery orders worth more than $5 million.Federal data shows that transactions valued at more than $5 million account for nearly half of the money spent under interagency contracts, according to the panel’s report.“The panel believes that these procurements are of sufficient significance that they should be subject to greater transparency and review,” the report states.In line with that recommendation, the fiscal 2008 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 4986), which President Bush signed into law in January, gave companies the right to submit protests of task- and delivery-order awards to the Government Accountability Office for review.