Section one: Contracting authority/entity
one.1) Name, addresses and contact point(s)
Ministry of Defence
Abbeywood NH1 Atrium
Bristol
BS34 8JH
Contact
Julia Fox
For the attention of
Fox Julia
Email(s)
Country
United Kingdom
one.2) Type of the contracting authority
Ministry or any other national or federal authority, including their regional or local subdivisions
one.3) Main activity
Defence
one.4) Contract award on behalf of other contracting authorities
The contracting authority is purchasing on behalf of other contracting authorities:
No
Section two: Object of the contract
two.1) Description
two.1.1) Title attributed to the contract
FSASTC/00114 - FsAST - HIGH G TRAINING AND TEST CAPABILITY
two.1.2) Type of contract and location of works, place of delivery or of performance
Services
Service category No 3: Defence services, military defence services and civil defence services
Main site or location of works, place of delivery or of performance
RAF Cranwell
NUTS code
- UK - United Kingdom
- UKF30 - Lincolnshire
two.1.4) Short description of the contract or purchase(s)
High G Human Centrifuge Training and Test Capability - service provision and equipment maintenance for 3 years + 1 year Optional extension
two.1.5) Common procurement vocabulary (CPV)
- 80510000 - Specialist training services
Additional CPV code(s)
- 50324200 - Preventive maintenance services
two.2) Total final value of contract(s)
two.2.1) Total final value of contract(s)
Value: £10,984,833
Excluding VAT
Section four: Procedure
Type of procedure
Negotiated without publication of a contract notice
Justification for the award of the contract without prior publication of a contract notice
1) Justification for the choice of the negotiated procedure without prior publication of a contract notice
The works/goods/services can be provided only by a particular tenderer for reasons that are:
technical
connected with the protection of exclusive rights
The Flight Simulation and Synthetic Trainers Team, part of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (“the Authority”) intends to place a new contract with Thales UK Limited (“Thales”) for the continued service provision and equipment maintenance of the High G Centrifuge in Cranwell together with the continued development of the training and test programme and safety case. The current contract has been in place for nearly 2 years and is due to expire in November 2021. The Authority intends to place a new contract with Thales for a period of 3 years with an option to extend for a further 12 months. The value of this new contract is estimated to be approximately £7-9 million. It is considered that this contract can be entered into by the Authority without the prior publication of a contract notice pursuant to Regulation 16(1)(a)(ii) of the Defence and Security Public Contract Regulations 2011 on the basis that no economic operator aside from Thales UK is capable of meeting the Authority's requirements for technical reasons. For reasons unforeseeable by both the Authority and Thales the development of the safety case and training programme will not be at a sufficient level of maturity to enable the on-going requirement to be competed upon expiry of the current contract due to the lack of robust data which it is envisaged will be available on expiry of the current contract. Furthermore, there is only one company (Thales UK), who can provide the on-going services as they are the only ones who have the know-how and expertise to provide the continuing services. To hand the continuing development of the safety case and training programme to another provider would for interchangeability and interoperability reasons be strictly impractical as a new provider would have to repeat the vast majority of the work already done. This would cause delay, significant inconvenience and substantial duplication of costs for the Authority. In addition, to provide incomplete or immature data merely for the purposes of a competition, before it is at a sufficient stage of maturity risks endangering life. The Authority intends competing the on-going requirement as soon as it is practicable for it to do so
four.2) Award criteria
four.2.2) Information about electronic auction
An electronic auction has been used: no
four.3) Administrative information
four.3.1) File reference number attributed by the contracting authority
FsASTC/00114
four.3.2) Previous publication(s) concerning the same contract
of 18 November 2020
Contract notice
Notice number: 2021/S 242-639371 of 14 December 2021
Voluntary ex ante transparency notice
Notice number: 2020/S 228-563113 of 18 December 2020
Section five: Award of contract
Contract No
FsASTC/00114
five.1) Date of contract award decision
29 November 2021
five.2) Information about offers
Number of offers received
1
Number of offers received by electronic means
1
five.3) Name and address of economic operator in favour of whom the contract award decision has been taken
Thales UK Ltd
Manor Royal
Crawley
RH10 0HA
Email(s)
crawley.reception@uk.thalesgroup.com
Telephone
+44 1293581000
Country
United Kingdom
Internet address
https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/countries/europe/united-kingdom/about-thales-uk/our-uk-locations
five.4) Information on value of contract
Total final value of the contract
Value: £10,984,833
Excluding VAT
Section six: Complementary information
six.1) Information about European Union funds
The contract is related to a project and/or programme financed by European Union funds: No