Overview
FAR 37.114 establishes safeguards and oversight requirements for service contracts involving advisory, analytical, or evaluative work to prevent contractors from performing inherently governmental functions. It ensures that government officials retain proper authority and accountability when using contractor support for policy and decision-making activities.
Key Rules
- Oversight Staffing: Agencies must assign a sufficient number of qualified government employees to manage contractor activities, particularly those supporting policy development.
- Scope Protection: Contract functions must not be expanded or modified during performance to include inherently governmental tasks.
- Enhanced Scrutiny: Functions that "closely support" inherently governmental tasks (as defined in FAR 7.503(c)) require a higher degree of management oversight and scrutiny.
- Self-Identification: Contractor personnel must identify their status in meetings, on telephone calls, and in any situation where their affiliation is not obvious to avoid being mistaken for government officials.
- Work Product Disclosure: All reports and documents produced by contractors must be clearly marked as contractor products or appropriately disclose contractor participation.
Practical Implications
- Contracting Officer’s Representatives (CORs) must maintain active surveillance to ensure contractors provide "input" rather than making "decisions," preventing "organizational creep" into government-only roles.
- Contractors must adopt transparent communication protocols, such as using specific email signatures and verbal disclaimers in meetings, to maintain the distinction between the public and private workforce.