The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Office of Inspector General has issued a report on the FDIC’s contract oversight management. The FDIC relies heavily on contractors for support of its mission, especially for information technology, receivership, and administrative support services. Over a 5-year period from 2013 to 2017, the FDIC awarded 5,144 contracts valued at $3.2 billion. The average annual awarded amount by the FDIC for contractor services over these 5 years was approximately $640 million.
We examined the FDIC’s oversight and monitoring of contracts using its contracting management information system, the capacity of Oversight Managers (OM) to oversee assigned contracts, OM training and certifications, and security risks posed by contractors and their personnel.
We reported that the FDIC must strengthen its contract oversight management. For four sampled contracts, we found that the FDIC received goods and services as specified in the contracts and complied with its security requirements for contractors and their personnel.
In addition, we found that the FDIC needs to improve its contract management information system, contract documentation, workload capacity of OMs for one Division, and the training and certification of certain OMs. Specifically, we found that:
- The FDIC’s contracting management information system had limited data and reporting capabilities for Agency-wide oversight of its contract portfolio;
- The FDIC’s contract files were missing certain required documentation such as contract inspection and acceptance documentation;
- Personally Identifiable Information was improperly stored in the FDIC’s electronic contract file due to a contradiction between FDIC policy and instructions to OMs;
- Some OMs within the FDIC’s Division of Information Technology lacked the workload capacity to oversee contracts; and
- Certain OMs were not properly trained or certified as prescribed by FDIC policy.
We made 12 recommendations to improve the FDIC’s contract oversight management. Management concurred with 10 of the 12 recommendations and partially concurred with the remaining 2 recommendations.