OIG Bulletin, June 2021: Evaluation Guidelines as a Best Practice for Proposal Review

Although not required by Chapter 30B, we recommend that jurisdictions create evaluation guidelines as a best practice, to ensure that evaluators know their responsibilities and review proposals in a fair, objective and consistent manner.

Best Practice Recommendations

Certain Chapter 30B procurements require the evaluation of vendor proposals. See M.G.L. c. 30B, § 6. A jurisdiction’s Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) designates the individual or individuals responsible for evaluating proposals for supplies and services. Id. at § 6(e). When assembling a team of evaluators to review vendor responses to a request for proposals (RFP) under Chapter 30B, jurisdictions should consider creating evaluation guidelines.

Without clear, written guidelines in place, jurisdictions are forced to rely on assumptions about how the evaluation process will work, and evaluators may make up rules as they go along.

This can create confusion and inconsistency, which could delay contract awards, lead to vendor protests and fail to promote fairness and transparency.

Effective evaluation guidelines can be simple. The guidelines can be structured as a to-do list or checklist for each evaluator, along with an outline of the evaluation criteria for the proposal under consideration and a restatement of the rule for award. This creates a roadmap for all evaluators to follow and makes their obligations clear. In addition, jurisdictions can create a general template for all proposal evaluations, describing the evaluation process, relevant timeframes, information about group size and membership (using titles or expertise rather than names) and evaluator responsibilities, including reminders about confidentiality and objectivity.

Evaluation guidelines remind evaluators that they must focus solely on the evaluation criteria contained in the specific proposal under review. See id. This reminder can be helpful for group members who have additional information or biases and want to consider factors beyond the evaluation criteria. For example, an evaluator may want to increase a vendor’s rating because the vendor offered the jurisdiction free items that were not part of the RFP. Despite the added value to the jurisdiction, evaluators should not consider the free items in the evaluation process because such items were not included by the jurisdiction in the original RFP. Similarly, an evaluator may be aware of poor performance by a vendor years before in another jurisdiction. Although this information may be relevant in a reference check, it should not influence an objective proposal evaluation. Considering factors outside of the solicitation or a vendor’s response could prejudice the vendors and the procurement process.

Additional Resources

OIG Bulletin, June 2021, Vol. 2, #2

Date published:	June 9, 2021