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Public Works and Government Services Canada

6.30.10. Confirming Orders and Contracts Involving Pre-contractual Work

  1. Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) does not normally place contracts to confirm the actions of departments or agencies. The practice of providing such service to client departments should be discouraged to the maximum extent practical. However, it may be necessary for PWGSC to become involved because of its exclusive goods procurement authority. PWGSC may have some value to add in processing confirming orders when the work is complete, or contracts when the work has started.
  2. Requests for confirming orders and contracts for pre-contractual work are considered non-competitive and must be evaluated and processed on the basis of the circumstances surrounding each instance. Where the request is the result of attempts to circumvent normal procurement procedures, return of the request to the client department should be a prime consideration.
  3. Where the work has been completed, Legal Services will prepare a confirming order that will contain only the information necessary to document the transaction, which includes the parties, the work performed, the dates, the amount, a release and, if required, a transfer of intellectual property rights. The appropriate director or higher authority, as determined by the contract value and non-competitive contract approval authority limits, must approve the confirming orders processed by PWGSC.
  4. Where the work has commenced, the contracting officer will prepare a contract. This contract should only include work that was not subject to a proper contract authorization. Even though the work started before a required contract authorization, the contract must not be backdated. The date in the Period of the Contract or Period of Performance clause must be the award date of the written contract. The contract cannot be backdated or retroactive under any circumstances. To ensure that the work done before the contract date will be covered by the contract, the pre-contractual work clause C0210C of the Standard Acquisition Clauses and Conditions Manual, indicating the date the work has started, must be included in the contract to pay the contractor for any work performed before the award of the written contract.
  5. For procurements that fall within Complexity Levels 1 through 3 inclusive, the appropriate authority, as determined by the Procurement Risk Assessment and non-competitive contract approval authority limits, must approve the contracts processed by PWGSC.
  6. For procurements that fall within Complexity Levels 4 and 5, the approval of the ADM is required.
  7. The client department will remain liable for any complaints resulting from their actions.
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