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Summaries
The chapters in this text are organized first to provide you
with an understanding of the issues, then to walk you through the award of
assistance agreements, and finally to describe post-award requirements. The
specific content of each chapter is summarized as follows:
Chapter 2: Planning Considerations
This chapter discusses issues associated with the planning phase of assistance
agreements. Acquisition vs. assistance is covered in this chapter, as well
as selecting the appropriate type of assistance agreement. The chapter covers
other issues including the preference for competition, the avoidance of personal
services or conflicts of interest, and other miscellaneous issues ranging from
using government property to reporting waste, fraud, and mismanagement. You
will want to understand the issues before you start the process of developing
an assistance agreement so you can decide which issues apply to your project
and how they should be addressed. Sometimes a particular issue triggers the
need for additional approvals that must be secured early in the process.
Chapter 3: Pre-Application Phase
This chapter discusses developing solicitations for assistance agreements.
It gives an overview of the competitive process and discusses the use of partial
applications. Guidance on advertising the requirement, communicating with potential
applicants, and amending the solicitation is included. You will find checklists
to help you locate the elements you need for your solicitation and a sample
solicitation; i.e., Request for Application (RFA) as well.
Chapter 4: Review/Selection Applications Phase
This chapter addresses the review of applications for assistance. Reviews of
applications for assistance include administrative reviews, relevancy reviews,
and in some programs, technical reviews by qualified, independent peer reviewers.
The chapter focuses on your responsibilities in the review process from the
planning stage through documenting the review. The checklists and sample documents
will help you with the process.
Chapter 5: Funding Package and Award
Phase
This chapter continues the process of awarding assistance agreements by describing
the procedures for selecting the best application and negotiating, as appropriate,
with the selected applicant(s). You will find both the details of agency's
requirements for an application and a sample application. Because POs must
review and evaluate proposals, you need to know what the agency requires. You
will learn how to prepare the documentation needed to support an award recommendation.
Examples of the various types of award documents and checklists are included
to help you understand your responsibilities and ensure the package you submit
is complete.
Chapter 6: Post Award Management/Monitoring
Phase
This chapter explains how to manage your extramural agreement. You learn how
to monitor your agreement from both a technical and financial perspective,
how to process changes to the agreement, and how to deal with less than satisfactory
performance. You also learn about the various types of reviews and audits that
might occur, and what your responsibilities are in relation to them. Additionally,
this chapter explains what constitutes official agency records and why you
need to maintain complete, accurate files. You will learn how to establish
a file for the various types of agreements and how long to maintain the files.
Included are sample file plans for assistance agreements.
Chapter 7: Close-out Phase
This chapter explains how to close out your agreement once the recipient has
met the requirements. The examples of closeout letters and memos will help
you with this final phase.