Award

Environmental Observations Data Storage and Retrieval Service

  • Met Office

F15: Voluntary ex ante transparency notice

Notice identifier: 2024/S 000-008143

Procurement identifier (OCID): ocds-h6vhtk-044872

Published 14 March 2024, 11:21am



Section one: Contracting authority/entity

one.1) Name and addresses

Met Office

Fitzroy Road

EXETER

EX13PB

Email

procurement.enquiries@metoffice.gov.uk

Country

United Kingdom

Region code

UKK - South West (England)

Justification for not providing organisation identifier

Not on any register

Internet address(es)

Main address

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/

one.4) Type of the contracting authority

National or federal Agency/Office

one.5) Main activity

Environment


Section two: Object

two.1) Scope of the procurement

two.1.1) Title

Environmental Observations Data Storage and Retrieval Service

two.1.2) Main CPV code

  • 72000000 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support

two.1.3) Type of contract

Services

two.1.4) Short description

The delivery of a managed Environmental Observations Data Storage and Retrieval Service.

two.1.6) Information about lots

This contract is divided into lots: No

two.1.7) Total value of the procurement (excluding VAT)

Value excluding VAT: £500,000

two.2) Description

two.2.3) Place of performance

NUTS codes
  • UKK - South West (England)

two.2.4) Description of the procurement

This procurement is for the delivery of a managed Environmental Observations Data Storage and Retrieval Service.

The central component of this service is a specialised Cloud-hosted software platform to ingest, process and expose a comprehensive suite of environmental (non-NWP) weather data through the OGC Environmental Data Retrieval (EDR) API.

Observations are critical to the Met Office ability to deliver value to our customers in the Nowcasting time periods and to support validation of Numerical Weather Prediction.

In order to continue to get observations (environmental weather data) to our meteorologists and into customer products and services, the Met Office has a prerequisite to be able to expose the data in a way that meets downstream user requirements for standard protocols and formats.

To address the detailed challenges the Met Office seeks to develop an observations software platform. This will be deployable to an AWS Cloud location and will, in addition, need to manage data transfer which overcomes current Environmental Data Retrieval (EDR) API architectural constraints, inherent within the complex Met Office domain.

two.2.11) Information about options

Options: Yes

Description of options

An extension option will be included in the contract.


Section four. Procedure

four.1) Description

four.1.1) Type of procedure

Award of a contract without prior publication of a call for competition in the cases listed below

  • The procurement falls outside the scope of application of the regulations

Explanation:

The Met Office intends to award a contract to IBL for the provision of a managed Environmental Observations Data Storage and Retrieval Service.

IBL is the only supplier with the necessary OGC EDR standard domain knowledge and technical understanding of the existing Met Office infrastructure to deliver the requirements within the critical timescales needed to meet the strategic dependencies of downstream projects across the Met Office.

Contracting with another supplier would therefore create unacceptable delivery delay risks for providing critical observations data to Met Office customers.

four.1.8) Information about the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)

The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement: Yes


Section five. Award of contract/concession

A contract/lot is awarded: Yes

five.2) Award of contract/concession

five.2.1) Date of conclusion of the contract

14 March 2024

five.2.2) Information about tenders

The contract has been awarded to a group of economic operators: No

five.2.3) Name and address of the contractor/concessionaire

IBL Software Engineering Slovakia

Bratislava

Country

Slovakia

NUTS code
  • SK - Slovakia
Justification for not providing organisation identifier

Not on any register

The contractor/concessionaire is an SME

Yes

five.2.4) Information on value of contract/lot/concession (excluding VAT)

Total value of the contract/lot/concession: £500,000


Section six. Complementary information

six.4) Procedures for review

six.4.1) Review body

High Court

London

Country

United Kingdom