SSA starts to craft IT services recompete
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By
Ross Wilkers
The Social Security Administration currently works with CGI Federal, Leidos and Peraton as incumbents.
The Social Security Administration has started to craft its plan for the recompete of the agency’s main IT services contract that focuses on hardware and software to support customer service functions.
SSA chose CGI Federal, Leidos and Northrop Grumman in 2017 for the potential 10-year Information Technology Support Services Contract. Peraton inherited Northrop’s place on the contract four years later by acquiring the defense hardware giant’s IT and mission support services unit.
SSA’s Thursday release of a sources sought notice via FedConnect represents the beginning of market research efforts for the ITSSC Recompete, the current name for the planned contract.
Roughly $2.9 billion in task order volume has flowed through the current contract that is slated to sunset on Sept. 27, according to GovTribe data. Leidos has been the largest recipient of that spend at 62.3%, or $1.8 billion. Peraton is next at 30.2%, or $875.3 million. Work by CGI makes up the remainder at 7.5%, or $216.9 million.
For the new iteration, SSA is again emphasizing efforts to more heavily rely on automation for managing its technology workloads given the agency’s expectation of 70 million more people signing up for Social Security over the next decade.
Customer service processing is a key focal point for the contract, as is the ability of systems to adapt quickly to changes in legislation.
SSA has broken out the work into four broad areas:
- Database and data administration
- Lifecycle activities for software improvement and web/interface
- Software engineering and management support
- Systems administration and systems security support
The agency’s questionnaire for respondents asks for details on items such as the cloud environments their products and solutions reside in, plus the licensing or pricing model associated with them.
Interested parties are also being asked to provide examples of prior implementations in a live, business environment with information on the number and sizes of installations.
Responses to the request for information are due no later than 12 p.m. Eastern time on Feb. 12.