The companies that landed awards under Interior’s Foundation Cloud Hosting Services II contract are Accenture Federal Services, IBM, CGI Federal, SAIC, Cognosante, Zivaro and Smartronix. Those seven vendors will compete for task orders under the greater indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract. 

The announcements of the seven awards detail Interior’s statement of work for the contract, requiring cloud license and support services for infrastructure, platform and software in a cloud environment. 

This contract comes as the initial iteration of the Foundation Cloud Hosting Services vehicle is set to expire later this year. Awarded in 2013 to 10 contractors, the initial contract has a $10 billion ceiling.

In the department’s initial statement of work, it wrote about the latest contract: “This follow-on FCHS contract is shifting to multiple service provider focus and integration among our solutions and a hybrid model hosting environment vision. Providing interoperability and data integrations between multiple technologies and services across the Department bureaus and offices.”

It also complements Interior’s $1 billion cloud contract award to Peraton last year for its Cloud Hosting Solutions III acquisition, which enlists the IT contractor to manage the department’s portfolio of cloud services.

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Seven plaintiffs who are participants of or eligible for benefits from the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) – a Federal Government-sponsored retirement savings and investment plan similar to 401(k) plans – joined together to file a class-action lawsuit against Accenture Federal Services (AFS), Alight Solutions and the five members of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

“AFS and Alight completely botched the migration of TSP’s services due to an array of technological and staffing shortfalls that have virtually brought the services offered by TSP to participants to a screeching halt,” the plaintiffs state in the class actions suit.

“Defendants’ failure to ensure the timely payment of Hardship Withdrawals, Non- Hardship Active Withdrawals, Out of Service Withdrawals, Death Benefits, and TSP Loan proceeds is not a one-off situation but instead is caused by systemic flaws in TSP’s system,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit alleges that the TSP program’s delay and failure to disburse funds within the program to beneficiaries has forced military personnel, veterans, and federal employees who use TSP to be forced to procure high interest consumer loans as alternatives so they are able to pay their bills and avoid home foreclosures, repossessions, and other hardships.

TSP serves as a tax-deferred retirement savings plan for approximately 6.5 million members of the uniformed services and other federal employees, similar to 401K plans offered to private-sector employees and manages more than $838 billion in assets. 

The plaintiffs are seeking relief from the defendants to immediately disburse proceeds for all approved TSP loans and withdrawals as well as appropriate damages for plaintiffs and class members’ losses.

The suit also requests a declaration that defendants are financially responsible for all notice and relief and requires that the defendants pay both pre- and post-judgment interest on any amounts awarded as well as attorneys’ fees as permitted by law.

The plaintiffs are demanding a trial by jury on all issues.

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According to a press release issued by the tech services and consulting firm, it will support the Office of the Chief Information Officer, within USAID’s Bureau for Management, and the contract has a 10-year performance period.

Commenting on the contract award, Accenture Federal Services Managing Director and USAID Client Lead John Roche said: “This contract award marks Accenture Federal Services’ first prime contract with USAID. We are thrilled to be tapped to lead this critical initiative for the Agency.”

“We look forward to delivering innovative, cost-effective solutions that protect the integrity, confidentiality, and accountability of the Agency’s information assets,” he added.

The award is the latest federal IT contract win for Accenture in recent months. Last month, the company was awarded, along with federal contractor Maximus, a spot on the Internal Revenue Service’s Enterprise Development, Operations Development IT modernization contract vehicle.

This came after the company in March was awarded an IT infrastructure operations and modernization contract worth $380 million by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency. That contract was awarded as a task order through the General Services Administration’s Alliant 2 governmentwide acquisition contract vehicle.

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Under terms of the contract, the two companies will compete for future task orders alongside Booz Allen Hamilton and IBM, which also have spots on the contract.

The contract vehicle supports the IRS applications development office, which is the IRS bureau responsible for building, testing and delivering integrated information application systems. It is intended to help bring more than 400 legacy IRS systems under one contract to modernize existing systems, build out analytics and improve cybersecurity.

Enterprise Development, Operations Services has a ceiling of up to $2.6 billion and a performance period of seven years.

Details of the contract award come after the agency earlier this month tested a prototype of a free tax filing system that could allow Americans to file tax returns digitally and free of charge.

IRS on May 16 submitted a report to Congress, undertaken in collaboration with nonprofit New America, to evaluate a direct file option for taxpayers. Following this feasibility study, the agency said it would look to begin a pilot project to test the e-filing system during the 2024 tax filing season.

Commenting on the contract award, AFS Managing Director and IRS Client Lead Jessica Powell said: “The IRS had the foresight and vision to create a contract vehicle with the ability to keep up with, or even ahead of, new legislative demands.” She added: “These reforms will result in faster processing of returns and quicker distributions of the credits and benefits that are vital to so many Americans. We’re thrilled to offer support to the IRS as they make these technology enhancements happen.”

Maximus Federal General Manager Teresa Weipert said: “The IRS laid out an ambitious plan to transform how the agency provides services and capabilities to improve the taxpayer experience as well as IRS internal operations. Maximus, through our excellent IRS team and modernization expertise, will deliver on that plan and taxpayer experience.”

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The contract was awarded as a task order through the General Services Administration’s Alliant 2 governmentwide acquisition contract vehicle.

As part of the contract, Accenture will carry out work at CBP’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., as well as each of the agency’s divisions, offices, regional locations and data centers. It will also undertake work to help CBP’s Office of Information Technology optimize performance.

Commenting on the award, Accenture Federal Services client delivery executive David Pelgrim said: “As we enter phase two of the Data Center Support Services (DCSS) work, Accenture Federal Services is proud to continue our trusted partnership with this mission-focused agency.”

It is the latest IT services contract to be awarded to Accenture by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in recent months.

In July, the company won a 10-year, $199 million contract with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to provide IT services in support of that agency’s Secure Flight System.

This followed another $199 million contract awarded to Accenture, also with TSA, to support the consolidation of three credentialing systems into a single platform. Those systems were part of the delivery infrastructure for services including TSA PreCheck.

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Agencies lack the resources to consolidate data from qualitative interviews and surveys of customer groups and share insights with the technology teams designing and developing modern digital platforms, according to the report, which was coauthored with Accenture Federal Services.

President Biden issued the Customer Experience (CX) Executive Order in December 2021 with the goal of placing key life events at the center of digital services, and the Technology Modernization Fund Board designated $100 million in June for high-impact service provide projects improving CX. But long-term funding is needed for agencies to establish closed-loop feedback systems for identifying and responding to issues customers have with digital services and tracking progress toward resolving them.

“[T]ruly shifting from a culture of waivers and workarounds to a deeply embedded, customer-centric mindset requires greater collaboration and investment among multiple stakeholders beyond the core CX community — including finance, human resources, legal and beyond — to address long-standing barriers,” said Megan Peterman, CX and design leader at Accenture, in a statement. “Our report lays out a blueprint for building on the progress made to design customer journeys that mirror life experiences and deliver more equitable services for all.”

Based on interviews with federal officials and national research and academic institutes, the report makes seven recommendations:

• empower deputy secretaries with CX data, staff and performance management systems;
• set expectations for chief financial, information and human capital officers;
• make customer data easily accessible to staff;
• streamline data sharing;
• invest in digital talent, solutions and infrastructure;
• build external partnerships with vulnerable customer groups; and
• co-design digital services with customers.

PPS Vice President of Research, Evaluation and Modernizing Government Loren DeJonge Schulman is most excited about the seventh recommendation because of the potential to overcome physical, emotional and resource barriers to positive customer experience.

“When we give federal agencies the correct tools to implement positive change in their customer
experience systems, they do so effectively,” DeJonge Schulman said in a statement.

The report also suggests four broader actions government can take to improve CX including fully authorizing agencies to hire in accordance with their CX needs; allow for cross-agency investments, programs and resources; use emerging technologies and centralized data-sharing authorities and agreements for secure information exchange; and redesign regulatory and statutory CX frameworks to streamline recertification, access and eligibility.

“Administration, agency and congressional leaders must work together to redesign a government that is capable of not just understanding all its customers’ needs but also of building solutions for them and being accountable for how well those customers’ needs are met,” reads the report.

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The objective of the investigation, which will begin immediately, is to assess the Department’s progress in managing and implementing the BAS program.

“We will contact your audit liaisons to schedule an entrance conference, at which time we will discuss in further detail the specific nature of our project—including our objectives and scope, time frames, and potential data needs,” Frederick Meny, Jr.,  Assistant Commerce Department Inspector General for Audit and Evaluation said in a memo to Jeremy Pelter, Acting Chief Financial Officer at the agency.

It’s unclear from the Commerce OIG memo why the BAS cloud program is under audit.

Accenture was awarded the 20-year BAS contract in April 2020. The program is designed to consolidate core business systems for finance, acquisition, property and enterprise data storage into a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform.

Accenture Federal Services has provided the department with analytics, cybersecurity and finance solutions since the early 2000s, and since 2020 has delivered fully authorized cloud services: Accenture Federal Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning; Managed Detection and Response; and the Accenture Insights Platform.

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In an Aug. 8 letter to lawmakers, Government Accountability Office (GAO) congressional relations leader A. Nicole Clowers said the agency would review an array of matters including the award of the contract made to revamp the user portal for the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP).

“GAO accepts your request as work that is within the scope of its authority. At the current time we anticipate that staff with the required skills will be available to initiate an engagement in about three months,” Clowers wrote. According to the watchdog, the investigation will be led by Managing Director, Information Technology and Cybersecurity Nicholas H. Marinos and will start in three months.

New of the probe comes after House Democrats called for an investigation, after receiving a deluge of complaints from former federal employee constituents.

Following the website launch at the start of June, lawmakers received complaints from constituents experiencing difficulties accessing funds held within TSP. Federal retirees at the time reported difficulties accessing their accounts and reported the incomplete transfer of beneficiary information to the new digital platform.

As of Aug. 10, TSP has recorded 1,965,831 successful set-ups of the new MyAccount login system for the online platform, TSP spokesperson Kim Weaver told FedScoop. TSP has so far registered a total of 10,165,717 logins using the new system.

“The transition was definitely more difficult for some participants that we anticipated, however,  we have been transacting business for millions of participants,” Weaver added.

Accenture Federal Services (AFS) in November 2020 was awarded a contract, which is known as Converge, to “reimagine retirement serves for the digital age” and improve the customer experience for users of the TSP.

The TSP serves 6.1 million federal employees and members of uniformed services, managing a total of more than $644 billion in assets. The AFS contract has an 18-month transition and four three-year option periods.

Following the June rollout, users reported a number of issues in relation to the online system, including being unable to access their accounts and being unable to reach the TSP telephone helpdesk, which is known as ThriftLine.

Some users had to wait weeks for a security code to be delivered by mail in order to access the new platform. They also reported only being able to track the historical growth of their portfolio for a few months where previously they were able to go back multiple years.

A Hill source speaking to FedScoop on the condition of anonymity said issues were exacerbated by user wait times of up to nine hours for the TSP telephone helpdesk, which is known as ThriftLine, and said there were multiple reports of helpdesk calls disconnecting.

One former federal government employee describing his experience to FedScoop on the condition of anonymity said: “I realized there’d be a certain amount of chaos due to the new online procedures but after a month when I started calling to clarify the transfer procedures and the phone lines were still totally clogged I was like a bull flashed with a red cape.”

He added: “After being on hold for the better part of an hour the call was dropped. One call was dropped after the agent put me through the third degree to verify myself. The Thrift Plan is not the only one that does this but the constant interruption with useless information were almost unbearable.”

Thrift Savings Plan spokesperson Kim Weaver added that TSP deliberately did not transfer beneficiary information of roughly 150,000 participants because of data quality issues, but that for those participants it had retained their prior beneficiary details and would have paid out funds under that designation if needed.

She added that the lack of historical information for users on the new system was not an error. “Participants have access in their ‘My Account’ to daily balances beginning on June 1, the date of transfer to the new recordkeeper.  They also have access to year end balances back to 2010,” she added.

Weaver said also that TSP informed investors of upcoming changes by email in April.

An AFS spokesperson referred FedScoop to the Thrift Savings Plan Investment Board for comment. 

Click here to listen to Thrift Savings Plan spokesperson Kim Weaver discuss TSP website issues on the Daily Scoop Podcast earlier this month.

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Booz moves to the private sector after a 25-year career in government, most recently as senior IT adviser within the Social Security Administration’s Office of Digital Transformation. Earlier in his career, he also worked at the National Security Agency for five years.

At Accenture, Booz will work within the consulting firm’s federal program and project management division, and his work will focus on Department of Defense contracts. He joins Accenture on Aug. 17.

At SSA, he worked as technical and strategic lead for multiple platforms and areas of IT infrastructure, including ServiceNow and Pega, Windows, Linux infrastructure, VMWare servers, cloud adoption and software consolidation. 

Booz joins the ranks of federal agency IT leaders who have left government services to join Accenture. In 2020, former Air Force CIO Bill Marion moved to the company, taking up the post of managing director of growth and strategy within the company’s defense and intelligence practice. 

A spokesperson for AFS confirmed his appointment.

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AFS was awarded the task order in April this year following a protracted solicitation process that has so far included three bid protests, the most recent of which was filed by Deloitte.

In its latest decision issued last month, GAO partly sustained the protest but also disagreed with the claim that AFS’ cost and price proposals were not properly assessed.

“We recommend that the agency reevaluate proposals consistent with the terms of the solicitation as they relate to transition, and make a new selection decision.”

“Alternatively, if the terms of the solicitation do not reflect the agency’s requirements, it should revise the solicitation, conduct discussions with the offerors; solicit, receive, and evaluate revised proposals; and make a new source selection decision,” GAO said.

Prior to the submission of bid protests by both Deloitte and AFS, the solicitation process had an initial closing date of August 5 2019.

The $330M solicitation included a task order to operate and upgrade IT services for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ federally facilitated exchange. The task order had a one-year base period that included a six-month transition period and four one-year option periods.

In November 2019, Deloitte was initially selected as the winning bidder on the contract, which was subsequently protested by AFS. In response, HHS took corrective action by reviewing and revising its evaluation document.

In June 2020, HHS again selected Deloitte for the contract, and AFS then filed another protest. Following corrective action, GAO dismissed Accenture’s second protest.

HHS then amended the solicitation, and in December 2020, the two contractors submitted their proposals for an amended solicitation process, prior to the most recent award of the contract in April.

In this latest decision, GAO also recommended that Deloitte be reimbursed for costs associated with filing and pursuing its protest, including reasonable attorney’s fees.

Deloitte had argued in its protest that AFS was improperly credited for experience during the award process because it relied on the experience of its corporate parent, Accenture LLP. GAO dismissed this claim in its opinion, saying that AFS in its proposal spelt out its intention to rely on resources from its parent company multiple times.

AFS and Deloitte declined to comment. HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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