We don’t often use the Notebook to highlight contract announcements, but this one bears mentioning in that it’s very large, it appears to be another significant move toward strategic sourcing, and it gives some insight into a large slice of DoD spending that’s not often publicly disclosed.

Last week, the Army’s Intelligence and National Security Command made awards to 21 firms under an indefinite-delivery contract called Global Intelligence Support Services. The cost-reimbursement contract – drawn up as a comprehensive solution for most of the command’s service contracting requirements – is worth $7.2 billion over five years.

Assuming the award survives the window for bid protests intact, 30 percent of the total value will be set aside for small business awardees.

While $7.2 billion is a ceiling and the actual number of dollars INSCOM will obligate over the next five years are by no means assured, the new IDIQ’s dollar figure gives a snapshot into the level of resources DoD’s intelligence agencies are willing to commit to contractor support even during a period of diminishing resources. Army officials created the new contracting vehicle in order to bring under one umbrella a broad array of support services the Army had been buying via several other intelligence community acquisition vehicles.

The Army will use the IDIQ for not only INSCOM’s own needs, but also those of the rest of the intelligence community for missions in which INSCOM is partnering with another element of the IC. The vehicle covers four broad categories of services:

• Intelligence and security operations
• Information operations
• Mission support for facilities management, logistics, training and intelligence systems
• Sustainment services, including program management, strategic planning, and administrative and requirements analysis.

“A single acquisition will lead to multiple contracts that will provide for the competitive placement of task orders to meet current and future Army Intelligence, Security, and Information Operations requirements,” officials wrote in the original solicitation. “This contract will support complex, classified, compartmented, and/or unique ground-based and airborne reconnaissance and electronic intelligence collection and production systems.”

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