Throwback Thursday: Internal US Army Europe Memo Shares Persistent Truths About Contract Security

While starting our end-of-year file cleaning, we came across this memo from a Colonel in the US Army to his superiors titled: Contract Guard Programs Lessons Learned. While the recommendations are from years ago, much of the advice is both critical and (in bold) is as important as ever.

AEAPM-SOB 26 Feb 03

MEMORANDUM FOR IMA-E; ATTN: COL Santala

SUBJECT: Contract Guard Programs Lessons Learned

1. Since 1998, USAREUR (US Army Europe) has had a contract guard program to provide access control and other selected security missions on USAREUR Installations. Currently we have 738 traditional Contract Guard Positions (3558 personnel) and 31 Contract Explosive Detector Dogs. The annual cost for this program in FY04 will be $121,918,000. The following is a summary of our lessons learned to over the last four years.

2. General. You get what you pay for and what you ask for - if you don't pay anything and don't ask for anything - you won't get anything.

a. This does not mean that quality is automatically/can only be obtained w/high costs - it does mean that a lowest bid will likely result in a low level of performance.

b. Bidders should be assessed and award(s) made based on (in the following order):

(1) Past performance on contracts with similar requirements/magnitude.

(2) Their assessed capability to execute the contract requirements.

(3) Price... but only after the bidder has been judged to have successfully met the evaluation factors established for 1 & 2 above.

3. Performance Work Statement (PWS). Ensure all known requirements are contained in the contract performance work statement (PWS), including those areas listed below as well as the very specific guard post listing.

a. List actual guard requirements by post -i.e. Post 18; Main Gate: 2 (GDs), 24 hrs/day, 7 days/week; 2 (GDs) 12/5.

b. Do not confuse actual guard requirement w/number of personnel required to fill the positions. Establish terminology early on or there will be confusion, for example:

4. Develop government standards for guard qualifications. This should include age, experience, nationality (i.e. native-born citizens if deemed appropriate), medical/mental (doctor's certification), physical fitness, etc.

5. Background Checks. In USAREUR this is deemed to be the most critical of all PWS requirements. This must be well thought out, and must include all possible checks available at both Federal and State level.

6. Training requirements. You must establish minimal acceptable training requirements/hours of instruction by subject area. Contractors can submit a bid based on GOV required subjects or company training plan - but the company's training "plan" must be assessed against GOV required program. USAREUR PWS includes training POIs that "can" be used by the Contractor with a total of 52.5 hrs of initial training required (repeated annually) plus 24 hrs of refresher training required quarterly. The above totals include 16 hrs of initial weapons training/ qualification plus 8 hrs of quarterly training/qualification. It is critical to success of this program that these standards are met, documented fully, and checked routinely by the local SCORs.

8. Contract administration and management. Develop the GOV and contractor required management organization as it applies to the contract. Ensure their GOV-contractor POCs at each organizational level so as to allow resolution of issues/operational coordination at the lowest level possible.

9. Miscellaneous.

a. Determine an estimated hourly wage based on the local industry standards for the type/level of security guard being requested. Inform bidders of that estimate - once again they are not locked into it, but they must explain why they would use a lower scale. 85% (+/-) of contract costs are for labor - care must be taken to ensure the no bidder "buys into" the contract and that the guard force will be receiving an adequate wage or the security force will be plagued with excessively high turnover rates; will attract only sub-standard personnel, etc.

b. Technical Review (of the bidders) process of bids must:

(1) Include a panel of subject matter experts composed of the security personnel that both established the PWS requirements, and who will be the primary GOV personnel that will provide daily oversight of the contractor's performance.

(2) Ensure that both stated (wage rates) and inferred costs (training hours, estimated number of personnel to be hired, etc.) are actually reflected in cost proposals - basically check to ensure (for one example) that if a contractor says he will be paying guards on average $10/hr, that his cost data actually reflects that wage rate.

c. Ensure the PWS contains a clear/comprehensive GOV Quality Assurance plan; review the bidders' Quality Control Plan as part of the technical review process.

d. Greater trust/confidence should be placed in firms that specialize exclusively in security as opposed firms who do security along with other BASOPS functions (maintenance, cleaning, etc).

10. Summary: Identification of security requirements must be balanced against the performance based contracting policies/procedures wherein a contractor is given a broad mission statement and asked to submit a comprehensive proposal to meet that mission. Force protection and the plan/requirements to provide FP is a commander's responsibility. The guard/security requirements "piece" of an installation's FP plan is (should already be) identified and form the basis of the PWS.

11. POC is Mr. Edward Wojtyna, USAREUR Contract Guard COR

FOR THE PROVOST MARSHAL

CHARLES A. WILLIAMS

LTC, MP

Chief, Security Operations Branch