VOLUNTARY EX ANTE TRANSPARENCY NOTICE

Section I: Contracting Authority/Entity

I.1)

Name, Address and Contact Point(s)

I.2)

Type of contracting Authority and Main Activity or Activities

Ministry or any other national or federal authority, including their regional or local sub-divisions National or federal agency/Office Regional or local Authority Regional or local Agency/Office Body governed by public law European Institution/Agency or International Organisation

General public services Defence Public order and safety Environment Economic and financial affairs Health Housing and community amenities Social protection Recreation, culture and religion Education

Section II: Object of the Contract

II.1)

Description

II.1.1)

Title attributed to the contract by the contracting authority

Maintenance, support and decommissioning of Ofqual's Regulatory IT Platform.

II.1.2(a))

Type of works contract

II.1.2(b))

Type of supplies contract

II.1.2(c))

Type of service contract

II.1.2)

Main site or location of works, place of delivery or performance

II.1.3)

This notice involves a framework agreement

II.1.4)

Short description of the contract or purchase(s)

Maintenance, support and decommissioning of Ofqual's Regulatory IT Platform.

II.1.5)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

II.1.6)

Contract covered by the government procurement agreement (GPA)

II.2)

Total final value of the contract(s)

II.2.1)

Total final value of the contract(s)

Section IV: Procedure

IV.1)

Type of procedure

IV.1.1)

Type of procedure

IV.2)

Award criteria

IV.2.1)

Award criteria

IV.2.2)

An electronic auction has been used

IV.3)

Administrative information

IV.3.1)

File reference number attributed by the contracting authority

3068

IV.3.2)

Previous publication(s) concerning the same contract

Other previous publications

Section V: Award of contract

Contract No:

 Lot Number: 

 Title: 

V.1)

Date of contract award decision:

V.2)

Numbers of offers received:

V.3)

Name and address of economic operator to whom the contract has been awarded

V.4)

Information on value of contract

V.5)

The contract is likely to be subcontracted

Short description of the value/proportion of the contract to be subcontracted

Section VI: Complementary Information

VI.1)

Contract related to a project and/or programme financed by community funds?

VI.2)

Additional Information

VI.3)

Procedures for appeal

VI.3.1)

Body responsible for appeal procedures

Body responsible for mediation procedures

VI.3.2)

Lodging of appeals

In accordance with Regulations 47 to 47P (inclusive) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 (as amended).

VI.3.3)

Service from which information about the lodging of appeals may be obtained

VI.4)

Dispatch date of this Notice

Annex D1 – General procurement

Justification for the award of the contract without prior publication of a contract notice in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU)
Directive 2004/18/EC

a) No tenders or no appropriate tenders in response to:

	Open procedure
	Restricted procedure

b) The products involved are manufactured purely for the purpose of research, experiment, study or development under the conditions stated in the Directive (for supplies only).

c) The works/goods/services can be provided only by a particular tenderer for reasons that are:

	Technical
	Artistic
	Connected with the protection of exclusive rights

d) Extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable by the contracting authority and in accordance with the strict conditions stated in the Directive.

e) Additional works/deliveries/services are ordered under the strict conditions stated in the Directive.

f) New works/services, constituting a repetition of existing works/services and ordered in accordance with the strict conditions stated in the Directive.

g)Service contract awarded to the successful candidate or one of them after a design contest.

h) For supplies quoted and purchased on a commodity market.

i) For the purchase of supplies on particularly advantageous terms:

	from a supplier which is definitely winding up its business activities
	from the receivers or liquidators of a bankruptcy, an arrangement with creditors or a similar procedure.

j) All tenders submitted in reply to an open procedure, a restricted procedure or competitive dialogue were irregular or unacceptable. Only those tenderers were included in the negotiations which have satisfied the qualitative selection criteria.

Other justification for the award of the contract without prior publication of a contract notice in the OJEU:

k) The contract has as its object services listed in Annex B of Directive 2004/18/EC or in Annex XVII B of Directive 2004/17/EC

l) The contract falls outside the scope of application of the relevant directive.

In addition to the box(es) ticked above please explain in a clear and comprehensive manner why the award of the contract without prior publication of a contract notice in the OJEU is lawful, stating in any case the relevant facts, and, as appropriate, the conclusions of law in accordance with the articles in the relevant Directive (500 words maximum):

Ofqual entered into a contract with Lockheed Martin for the development and on-going support of its regulatory IT systems in January 2010 for a term of 4 years. This contract was subsequently extended for 12 months and expires in January 2015. Ofqual carried out a general review of its IT provision in 2013. This review recommended that a further focused review be undertaken of the regulatory IT platform, including options for future support arrangements. This focused review took place in 2014; it had not previously been planned and its findings were, therefore, unforeseen. The focused review revealed that the nature of the current system is highly specialist and, as such, an incoming provider would face considerable difficulty in acquainting itself with the system. The regulatory platform has been developed in a bespoke manner by Lockheed Martin, using bespoke code. The principal component of the IT platform, ‘RITS' is an application implementing a custom business domain model and custom written user interface, is largely undocumented and is composed of 390,000 lines of bespoke code. Furthermore, the focused review concluded that it would be unfeasible to adapt the system to accommodate Ofqual's future business needs and so it should be decommissioned and more flexible systems put in place. Decommissioning activity has therefore become a necessary service which was previously unforeseen. System closure activity requires comprehensive knowledge of the systems and data. This technical knowledge resides only with Lockheed Martin, who designed, built and maintain the system. Consequently, Ofqual has serious concerns that a new supplier would not be able to acquire the level of knowledge required to provide the necessary levels of maintenance, support and successful data migration at the end of its operational life, in a timely and cost-effective way. In Ofqual's opinion, the technical knowledge required in order to maintain and decommission the current system is only held by Lockheed Martin, and the technical elements of the system effectively mean that the tasks of maintaining and supporting the regulatory platform and decommissioning it cannot be separated. In addition, there are a number of business critical processes within Ofqual which rely on the regulatory platform. The risk of service failure as a consequence of a new supplier being introduced is high. Ofqual would suffer major inconvenience if the availability of regulatory data which Ofqual relies on to deliver its statutory obligations is put at risk. An incoming provider would also be likely to include the cost of managing this risk in the price of its bid. Consequently, Ofqual has a genuine belief that, through unforeseen circumstances highlighted by the unplanned focused review, additional services have become necessary and cannot be provided separately from the original services without major inconvenience to Ofqual, for technical and economic reasons. Ofqual intends to award an extension of the original contract to Lockheed Martin for up to 2 years. The value of the extension is less than 50 % of the value of the consideration under the original contract.