An analysis of service contracts and their administration

Abstract

The military services are utilizing service contracting to alleviate the problems of personnel ceilings drawdowns and tight budgetary controls. Due to poor definition of the statement of work and a general misunderstanding of OMB Circular A-76 and a liberal interpretation of the Service Contract Act by the Department of Labor, service contracting and the administration of service contracts must be considered poor. Recent attempts by the Navy and Air Force through their COTR and TRCO concepts to alleviate some of the problems in service contract administration have had varied results. This thesis will examine the problems that presently hinder service contracting and the administration of service contracts. A new approach, job analysis, will be recommended for developing the statement of work and the Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan. Job analysis involves a systematic analysis of the function to be contracted. First a step-by-step review of the requirement to be contracted is conducted. The goal of this review is to arrive at specific output services with corresponding standards associated with the contracted service.