(a) The Administrator of General Services or his/her designee may grant an agency-wide exception (or exempt a component thereof) from the required use of ETS when requested by the head of a Department (cabinet-level agency) or head of an Independent agency when -
(1) The agency has presented a business case analysis to the General Services Administration that proves that it has an alternative TMS to the ETS that is in the best interest of the Government and the taxpayer (i.e., the agency has evaluated the economic and service values offered by the ETS contractor(s) compared to those offered by the agency's current Travel Management Service (TMS) and has determined that the agency's current TMS is a better value);
(2) The agency has security, secrecy, or protection of information issues that cannot be mitigated through security provided by the ETS contractors;
(3) The agency lacks the technology necessary to access ETS; or
(4) The agency has critical and unique technology or business requirements that cannot be accommodated by the ETS contractors at all or at an acceptable and reasonable price (e.g., majority of travel is group-travel).
(b) As a condition of receiving an exception, the agency must agree to conduct annual business case reviews of its TMS and must provide to the eTravel PMO data elements required by the eTravel PMO in a format prescribed by the eTravel PMO.
(c) Requests for exceptions should be sent to the Administrator, General Services Administration, 1800 F Street, NW., Washington, DC 20405 with full justification and/or analysis addressing paragraphs (a)(1), (a)(2), (a)(3), or (a)(4) of this section.
[FTR Amdt. 2003-07, 68 FR 71030, Dec. 22, 2003, as amended by FTR Amdt. 2007-05, 72 FR 61540, Oct. 31, 2007]