8-3.1 Professional and Technical Services

Definitions — Generally, professional services are those performed by individuals or firms of recognized status, such as accounting, engineering, law, and the sciences. Technical services are provided by individuals or firms who are expert in a given field, such as IT, training, writing and editing, purchasing, marketing and demographics, and other such areas. These services may be used to: (a) provide needed expertise on an individual or group basis; (b) to supplement the career workforce as required by workload; and (c) to provide turn-key services in support of postal operations.

Licenses — When prequalifying or purchasing professional services for which individuals are normally required to be licensed (such as medical, legal, accounting, and architecture), licenses must be required as a prerequisite to prequalification or contract award. Acceptable licenses may be limited to those issued by a particular state or entity, but only when local expertise is necessary to successful performance.

Required Clauses — All contracts for professional/technical services must include the following clauses:

• Clause 4-4: Nondisclosure (Professional Services) — This clause may be modified after consultation with assigned legal council.
• Clause 4-5: Inspection of Professional Services — The clause provides for inspection of the supplier’s work product and acceptance of only those products that meet reasonable professional standards. The clause is to be used in lieu of, not in addition to, the standard inspection language contained in Clause 4-1: General Terms and Conditions, or for Clause 2-1: Inspection and Acceptance, when used as a substitute for Clause 4-1: General Terms and Conditions.
• Clause 4-7: Records Ownership — The clause gives the Postal Service ownership of contract files, including copies of all supplier work papers. While this clause is mandatory for professional service contracts, purchase/SCM teams have to decide whether to include it or not in technical services contracts, depending on the nature of the service.

Depending on the particular purchase, the following clauses should be included in contracts for professional/technical services:

• Clause 4-6: Invoices (Professional Services) — This clause is included in all non-fixed-price contracts for professional/technical services. The clause requires presentation of invoices showing who performed the services, the hours and partial hours of service provided each day, and the services provided each hour or partial hour. Suppliers may be allowed to set minimum charges for partial hours or days.
• Clause 4-8: Key Personnel — This clause requires use of the key personnel identified in the supplier’s proposal, unless the contracting officer approves substitution, and provides for contract termination for failure to comply.
• Clause 1-1: Privacy Protection must be included as applicable. See the discussion in Section 7-14, Privacy Considerations.