17 March 2026 · Evaluation trail
Evaluation notes that cannot be followed
Scoring sheets survive. The sentence that explains a mark often does not. That is what a later audit reads as a break in the trail.
We are asked, more often than people admit, to look at an award file after a complaint. The scoring spreadsheet is usually present. What is missing is the remark that would let a stranger understand why bidder A scored 3 and bidder B scored 4 on the same criterion.
Copied remarks — the same paragraph pasted under every name — are a regular finding. So are criteria that appear on the sheet but not in the invitation. So are consensus meetings where the minutes record a decision but the individual sheets were never updated, or were updated in a different ink with no initial.
An evaluation trail audit does not ask whether the committee liked the right contractor. It asks whether the path from published rules to recommendation can be walked without calling someone who has since left. If it cannot, the application process is not finished, even if a letter of award has already gone out.
