This subpart applies to all contracts awarded on a competitive basis in accordance with FAR part 15. This subpart does not apply to contracts awarded on a non-competitive basis to the Small Business Administration under Section 8(a) of the Small Business Act.

(a) The source selection authority is the contracting officer. The contracting officer, acting as the source selection authority, shall select an offer for award based on review of the Source Evaluation Panel's recommendation contained in the reports described in paragraph (c) of this section.

(b) Any cancellation of solicitations and subsequent rejection of all proposals must be approved by the Head of the Contracting Activity.

(c) For all proposed contracts with total estimated values in excess of the simplified acquisition threshold and expected to result from competitive technical and price/cost negotiations, the cooperative review efforts of technical, contracting, and other administrative personnel are formalized through establishment of a Source Evaluation Panel. A single technical member may be appointed to the Source Evaluation Panel to evaluate proposals with the contracting officer's approval. In these instances, the Designating Official may appoint technical advisors (non-voting members) to assist the single technical member. The Source Evaluation Panel should not exceed five members, including the Chairperson except in unusual cases. The Source Evaluation Panel's proposal evaluation report(s) may include a Competitive Range Report and a Final Evaluation Report (to be used when award will be made after conducting discussions), or a Recommendation for Award Report (to be used when award will be made without discussions).

(d) The Designating Official (Office Director or designee) is responsible for appointing a Source Evaluation Panel to evaluate competitive technical proposals in accordance with the solicitation technical criteria. The Designating Official is also responsible for conducting an independent review and evaluation of the Source Evaluation Panel's proposal evaluation report(s) to the contracting officer.

The evaluation factors included in the solicitation serve as the standard against which all proposals are evaluated and are the basis for the development of proposal preparation instructions in accordance with FAR 15.304(b). The solicitation may indicate the relative importance of evaluation factors and subfactors by assigning a numerical weight to each factor. If a solicitation uses numerical weights, those weights shall be stated in the solicitation. The relative importance of factors that are not numerically weighted will be stated in the solicitation. Examples of factors which may not be numerically weighted are conflict of interest, estimated cost, and “go/no go” evaluation factors.

The contracting officer may provide offerors' cost proposals and supporting financial information to members of the Source Evaluation Panel at the same time technical proposals are distributed for evaluation. The Source Evaluation Panel shall use this information to perform an accurate integrated assessment of each offeror's proposal based on all the facts presented to them.