The changes intend to use FAR procurement procedures to the maximum extent possible including:

Greater uniformity in applying basic requirements. For example, in-house offers (referred to as "agency tenders") will be required to respond to a solicitation within the same timeframes required of private offerors or other public agency tenders or risk elimination from the competition. Another example is elimination of separate reviews of in-house proposals by an Independent Review Official (IRO) while others are reviewed by the source selection evaluation board (SSEB) where now the SSEB will evaluate all offers simultaneously.

Communications and negotiations. Now communications and negotiations will be guided by FAR principles covering exchanges between the government and private sector.

Post award accountability for in-house performance similar to that expected of private sector contractors. For example, agencies relying on in-house providers or public reimburseable providers will be required to document changes to the solicitation, track actual costs and be terminated for failure to perform. Agencies will also be required to re-compete work being provided in accordance with the same time limitations imposed by the FAR on contracts with the private sectors.

Cost and price realism analysis. Both agency in-house and public reimburseable tendors will be subject to cost or price realism analysis to determine whether their cost estimates have been calculated appropriately. Some commentators have noted that there are currently some requirements to ensure the government resources identified in the MEO are sufficient to meet performance needs but this process did not work in the past so new "cost realism" efforts need to be conducted with great vigilance.

Better planning in accordance with FAR Part 7. In effort to eliminate failed A-76 competitions in the past or ones where poor results stemmed from failure to identify proper grouping of activities, agencies must now follow similar steps contemplated under FAR Part 7 to (1) gather workload data and establish data collection systems (2) designate competition officials (3) determine roles and responsibilities of participants and (4) develop a preliminary completion schedule.

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