Description
This is a firm fixed price sole source Synopsis. The proposed contract is 100% set aside for small business concerns. ***The proposed contract action is for supplies or services for which the Government intends to solicit and negotiate with only one source under authority of FAR 6.302. Interested persons may identify their interest and capability to respond to the requirement or submit proposals. This notice of intent is not a request for competitive proposals. However, all proposals received within 5 days after date of publication of this synopsis will be considered by the government. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. Statement of Work (SOW) The Executive Office for Immigration Review intends to outsource the daily creation of a morning briefing for the Office of Legislative and Public Affairs and other EOIR officials. In furtherance of EOIR's mission, agency officials must start each day fully informed about important news printed and broadcast nationwide. EOIR has determined that this will best be accomplished via an expert-edited briefing rather than full-text articles or computer-generated summaries. This is a firm-fixed price contract, with one base year and two additional one-year options. The vendor will prepare a daily briefing memo that weaves together the important elements of news stories printed and broadcast nationwide. Stories to be considered will be those that mention EOIR or immigration policy. The items included will be culled from thousands of outlets daily and will be those EOIR officials themselves would have identified as important. Redundant and irrelevant news will be eliminated. Television news must include stories actually broadcast nationally and locally; it is not sufficient to provide links to stories appearing on the websites of local broadcasters, as many of those stories never aired. The vendor must use human analysts to: find and review articles and broadcasts from all major (and most smaller) daily newspapers, national and local television, newsweeklies, magazines and journals, Internet sites, specialty press, etc.; apply a complex understanding of EOIR's mission; determine which aspects of each story, if any, are important to the various constituencies within EOIR; edit out all information (not stories, but parts of stories) that is redundant or irrelevant; weave the remaining (important) information together such that it reads like a single story rather than what it really is, subsets of myriad stories on the same topic. In creating this new story from elements of various original stories, the vendor should also, as appropriate, characterize the coverage such that EOIR officials can quickly get a sense for how widely various story elements were run and also for the general tonality of the coverage. For print articles referenced in the briefing, the vendor must provide a link to the original full-text versions when available on the original publishers' websites. When links point to content on subscription-based sites, EOIR may at its discretion subscribe. For broadcast stories in which reviewing the actual audio/video would be particularly useful, the vendor will provide a link to available "video clips" that stream to the reader's desktop. The briefing must also: be delivered weekdays by 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time except on Federal holidays (including no more than two days at each of Thanksgiving and Christmas); include news from weekends and Federal holidays in the briefing immediately following those days; include a table of contents organized by subject matter; be available via an IP-protected Web site (including a searchable archive) or other secure delivery as dictated to vendor by the EOIR; including traditional email, mobile-friendly email, and Kindle; be available to any and all employees of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, exclusively for EOIR's internal use. The news included in the briefing must be current, meaning the 8:00 a.m. briefing will include stories appearing that morning in the nation's newspapers and broadcast in the preceding 24 hours by the nation's national and local television news outlets. It is very important that there be an extremely low incidence of missed or day-old stories. The vendor must also be extremely flexible to accommodate changes to the briefing based on changing needs at EOIR. The vendor would be expected to accommodate changes of this nature within the terms of the existing contract provided those changes do not materially alter the vendors costs. The vendor might be required on short notice to change the topics to be covered; the deadlines; the format of the briefing; etc. Given that the vendor will need to make expert judgments regarding which elements of various stories should appear in the briefing, and because this will be a primary source of information for the EOIR officials, the agency requires that the vendor have at least three similar contracts to provide similar services to large, complex federal entities such as Cabinet Secretaries and their Departments. Evaluation of Options (FAR 52.217-5) (July 1990) Except when it is determined in accordance with FAR 17.206(b) not to be in the Government's best interests, the Government will evaluate offers for award purposes by adding the total price for all options to the total price for the basic requirement. Evaluation of options will not obligate the Government to exercise the option(s). (End of provision) Period of Performance Base Year - 9/1/13 to 8/31/14 Option Year 1 - 9/1/14 to 8/31/15 Option Year 2 - 9/1/15 to 8/31/16 Also include payment/invoice method. EOIR prefers to have all services paid for monthly or quarterly in arrears. Please provide documentation if this service is sold as a product and is to be paid in full upfront/upon commencement of the term.