FAR 37.204—Guidelines for determining availability of personnel.
Plain-English Summary
FAR 37.204 tells agencies how to decide whether they have enough qualified people to evaluate or analyze proposals before they rely on outside support or make other staffing decisions for acquisition work. It covers the agency head’s duty to assess the availability of personnel with the right training and capabilities, the requirement to look to other Federal agencies when internal staff are not available, and the factors to weigh in deciding whether to search for borrowed personnel. It also addresses the process for detailing personnel from a supporting agency, what happens when reasonable efforts still do not produce qualified personnel, and the special case where an agency may make a class-wide determination for proposals requiring unusually unique or specialized expertise. In practice, this section is about making sure proposal evaluations are performed by competent people while balancing mission needs, cost, time, and interagency resource use. It helps agencies avoid delays, unnecessary expense, and poorly supported source selection or analysis decisions, and it gives contractors confidence that evaluations are being conducted by personnel with appropriate expertise.
Key Rules
Assess internal availability first
The head of the agency must determine for each evaluation or analysis of proposals whether the agency has enough personnel with the required training and capabilities to do the work. This is an affirmative staffing check, not an assumption that internal staff are available.
Look to other agencies if needed
If qualified personnel are not available inside the agency for a specific evaluation or analysis, the agency head must identify which other Federal agencies may have personnel with the needed training and capabilities. The agency cannot stop at internal shortages.
Weigh cost, time, and mission impact
In deciding whether to search for personnel from other agencies, the agency head must consider administrative search costs, procurement dollar value, travel and other support costs, and the other agencies’ need to use their personnel for mission work. The rule requires a practical, governmentwide resource decision, not just a staffing search.
Use a formal detail agreement
If a supporting agency agrees to provide the personnel, the agencies must execute an agreement for the detail of those personnel to the requesting agency. This creates the formal arrangement for borrowing the needed expertise.
Proceed only after reasonable attempts
If the requesting agency makes reasonable attempts but still cannot identify personnel with the required training and capabilities, the agency head may make the determination required by FAR 37.203. This preserves a fallback path when qualified personnel truly are unavailable.
Class-wide determinations are allowed
An agency may determine availability for a class of proposals when the required evaluation or analysis involves expertise so unique or specialized that it is not reasonable to expect such personnel to be available. This allows agencies to address recurring, highly specialized needs without repeating the same search each time.
Responsibilities
Head of Agency
Determine whether sufficient qualified personnel are available for each proposal evaluation or analysis; if not, identify other Federal agencies that may have the needed expertise; consider search costs, procurement value, travel and other costs, and mission needs; approve or rely on a detail agreement when another agency provides personnel; and, after reasonable unsuccessful efforts, make the determination required by FAR 37.203. The head of agency may also make class-wide availability determinations for uniquely specialized proposal work.
Requesting Agency
When internal personnel are unavailable, conduct reasonable efforts to identify qualified personnel from other Federal agencies, evaluate the practical costs and mission impacts of borrowing personnel, and arrange the detail agreement if a supporting agency agrees to provide staff.
Supporting Agency
Decide whether it can make qualified personnel available to the requesting agency and, if so, enter into an agreement for the detail of those personnel.
Personnel Performing Evaluation or Analysis
Provide the requisite training and capabilities needed for the specific proposal evaluation or analysis, whether they are agency employees or detailed personnel from another Federal agency.
Practical Implications
Agencies should treat staffing for proposal evaluation as a documented decision, not an informal assumption. A weak or undocumented availability check can lead to delays, protest risk, or questions about whether the evaluation was properly supported.
The rule encourages use of interagency resources, but only when it makes sense after considering cost, time, travel, and mission impact. In practice, agencies should avoid spending more to borrow experts than the procurement justifies.
Reasonable attempts matter. If an agency cannot find qualified personnel, it should be able to show what searches were made, which agencies were contacted, and why the effort failed before relying on the fallback authority.
Class-wide determinations can save time for highly specialized acquisitions, but they should be used carefully and only when the expertise is truly unique or specialized enough that qualified personnel are not reasonably expected to be available.
Contracting officers and acquisition leaders should coordinate early with program offices and human capital resources so proposal evaluation staffing problems do not surface late in the source selection or analysis process.
Official Regulatory Text
(a) The head of an agency shall determine, for each evaluation or analysis of proposals, if sufficient personnel with the requisite training and capabilities are available within the agency to perform the evaluation or analysis of proposals submitted for the acquisition. (b) If, for a specific evaluation or analysis, such personnel are not available within the agency, the head of the agency shall- (1) Determine which Federal agencies may have personnel with the required training and capabilities; and (2) Consider the administrative cost and time associated with conducting the search, the dollar value of the procurement, other costs, such as travel costs involved in the use of such personnel, and the needs of the Federal agencies to make management decisions on the best use of available personnel in performing the agency’s mission. (c) If the supporting agency agrees to make the required personnel available, the agencies shall execute an agreement for the detail of the supporting agency’s personnel to the requesting agency. (d) If the requesting agency, after reasonable attempts to obtain personnel with the required training and capabilities, is unable to identify such personnel, the head of the agency may make the determination required by 37.203 . (e) An agency may make a determination regarding the availability of covered personnel for a class of proposals for which evaluation and analysis would require expertise so unique or specialized that it is not reasonable to expect such personnel to be available.