Why was GAO’s 2023 bid protest sustain rate so high?

If you’re anything like me, GAO’s bid protest annual report had you thinking there must be some reason for a much higher than usual sustain rate (31 percent). So why was GAO’s 2023 sustain rate so high?

One word, er, acronym: CIO-SP4.

Historically, GAO’s sustain rate has hovered in the mere 15-percent range. This has, of course, led some to believe that there’s no point in protesting because it rarely works out. But, as we’ve pointed out many times, the sustain rate does not tell the whole story. Success rate—sustains and corrective actions—generally is around 50 percent. As such, it should be much more important number to people deciding whether to protest.

That being said, when the report comes out every year, like an eager teenager reading the last page of a novel first, I jump right to the sustain rate. This year, it made my eyes bug out like a cartoon character.

Thirty-one percent. That’s a huge jump from last year’s 13 percent and it means that almost a third of protests decided were in favor of the protester. Indeed, it’s a huge jump from 2021 (15 percent), 2020 (15 percent), and 2019 (13 percent).

Even the raw data is jarring. In 2022, GAO sustained 59 out of 455 protests. In 2023, it sustained 188 out of 608. What’s going on?

Spoiler alert: it’s not that GAO has suddenly become a much more inviting venue for protesters. The truth is, a whopping 119 sustains arose from the same procurement—the Department of Health and Human Services’ Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners 4 (CIO-SP4). In June, GAO sustained 93 protests and supplemental protests related to CIO-SP4. Then, in July, it sustained 26 more.

[DISCLOSURE: Schoonover & Moriarty LLC represents one of the successful protesters in the CIO-SP4 protest.]

If you take those 119 sustains out of the equation, GAO sustained just 69 protests out of 489—or 14 percent. That’s more like what we expected.

So, in terms of takeaways, there’s no reason to think anything has fundamentally changed at GAO. Other than this one aberrant case, it was business as usual.

But, as noted above, the important number is actually effectiveness rate (sustains and corrective actions), and that was at 57 percent for 2023. We can’t do the math on that to find out what it would be without those 119 CIO-SP4 sustains because GAO didn’t tell us exactly how many corrective actions there were. But, chances are, you take those sustains out and the rate would be around 50 percent.

So, that’s the reason for GAO’s high 2023 bid protest sustain rate.