CONTRACT NOTICE FOR CONTRACTS IN THE FIELD OF DEFENCE AND SECURITY

Section I: Contracting Authority

I.1)

Name, Address and Contact Point(s)

Section II: Object of the Contract

II.1)

Description

II.1.1)

Title attributed to the contract by the contracting authority

II.1.2)

Type of service contract

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

II.1.3)

Information on framework agreement

The notice involves the establishment of a framework agreement

II.1.4)

Information on framework agreement (if applicable)

	Framework agreement with a single operators
	Framework agreement with several operators

Number of participants to the framework agreement envisaged

Duration of the framework agreement

Justification for a framework agreement the duration of which exceeds seven years

Estimated total value of purchases for the entire duration of the framework agreement

Frequency and value of the contracts to be awarded

II.1.5)

Short description of the contract or purchase(s)

The Authority has a developing requirement to demonstrate a full-scale prototype of an autonomous vessel capability that is able to transit on the surface at speed, quickly transitioning sub-surface for covert delivery of capabilities. Integration into an open architecture network (NSN) will be critical for these vessels to operate autonomously and deploy modular mission payloads.

The littoral strike battlespace commander requires surveillance, reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and strike effectors, which can be covertly deployed to multiple simultaneous maritime locations and persist to enhance commando operations. The capability must have a useful service life, operate from the broadest range of platforms, worldwide, by day and night, survive likely threats and be deliverable.

Due to the rapid timescales the authority is driving, we would expect that companies we will be working with will have already successfully designed, manufactured and operated an autonomous vessel (as described above) capable of surface and sub-surface operation up to at least fully-operational demonstrator stage. If companies have not achieved this to date, we would expect companies to achieve a minimum entry criteria, potentially backed up by authority SQEP panel via on-site visits to confirm that you have capabilities, resources, plans and measures in place to meet this requirement within the given timescales. Please provide supporting evidence to the above within the white paper.

It is expected that the work will involve experimentation and demonstrations of an uncrewed Surface and subsurface vessel.

The contractual mechanism is intended to be a multi-supplier framework. Potential bidders are invited to register their interest in receiving an Invitation to Tender to join the framework by first completing the associated Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) and White Paper template.

The Authority intends to invite all eligible companies who pass the PQQ to tender for the Framework. Companies who successfully pass the PQQ will be considered eligible to receive an Invitation to Tender at the next stage of the programme. c.£4.45M inc VAT is available to be split amongst multiple companies under a competitive process and assessed for best Value For Money (VFM), awarding to 1 or more companies to accelerate towards Min Viable Product (MVP) within the Design/Re-design, Manufacture and Demo phases between Dec 22 and Mar 25.

The process as currently defined post PQQ will be to issue an ITT against a minimum requirement, select bidders, accelerate the proposed systems through funding, with the intent of having a full scale demonstration within the framework duration.

As with any framework, there can be no guarantee of any particular quantity of work being put through it.

The Authority expects that suppliers will be capable of taking on the breadth and scope of each piece of work and therefore collaboration will be required between suppliers in a competitive environment (collaborative team bids are encouraged).

II.1.6)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

II.1.7)

Information about subcontracting

	The tenderer has to indicate in the tender any share of the contract it may intend to subcontract to third parties and any proposed subcontractor, as well as the subject-matter of the subcontracts for which they are proposed.
	The tenderer has to indicate any change occurring at the level of subcontractors during the execution of the contract.
	The contracting authority/entity may oblige the successful tenderer to award all or certain subcontracts through the procedure set out in Title III of Directive 2009/81/EC.
	The successful tenderer is obliged to specify which part or parts of the contract it intends to subcontract beyond the required percentage and to indicate the subcontractors already identified.
	The successful tenderer is obliged to subcontract the following share of the contract through the procedure set out in Title III of Directive 2009/81/EC: minimum percentage: (%), maximum percentage: (%) of the value of the contract. (The maximum percentage may not exceed 30% of the value of the contract)

II.1.8)

Division into lots

II.1.9)

Will variants be accepted

Section III: Legal, Economic, Financial and Technical Information

III.2)

Conditions for Participation

III.2.1)

Personal situation

Suppliers Instructions How to Express Interest in this Tender:

1. Register your company on the eSourcing portal (this is only required once)

- Browse to the eSourcing Portal

- Click the “Click here to register” link

- Accept the terms and conditions and click “continue”

- Enter your correct business and user details

- Note the username you chose and click “Save” when complete

- You will shortly receive an email with your unique password (please keep this secure)

2. Express an Interest in the tender

- Login to the portal with the username/password

- Click the "PQQs Open to All Suppliers" link. (These are Pre-Qualification Questionnaires open to any registered supplier)

- Click on the relevant PQQ to access the content.

- Click the “Express Interest” button in the “Actions” box on the left-hand side of the page.

- This will move the PQQ into your “My PQQs” page. (This is a secure area reserved for your projects only)

- Click on the PQQ code, you can now access any attachments by clicking the “Settings and Buyer Attachments” in the “Actions” box

3. Responding to the tender

- You can now choose to “Reply” or “Reject” (please give a reason if rejecting)

- You can now use the ‘Messages’ function to communicate with the buyer and seek any clarification

- Note the deadline for completion, then follow the onscreen instructions to complete the PQQ

- There may be a mixture of online & offline actions for you to perform (there is detailed online help available)

If you require any further assistance please consult the online help, or contact the eTendering help desk.

Suppliers Instructions How to Express Interest in this Tender:

1. Register your company on the eSourcing portal (this is only required once)

- Browse to the eSourcing Portal

- Click the “Click here to register” link

- Accept the terms and conditions and click “continue”

- Enter your correct business and user details

- Note the username you chose and click “Save” when complete

- You will shortly receive an email with your unique password (please keep this secure)

2. Express an Interest in the tender

- Login to the portal with the username/password

- Click the "PQQs Open to All Suppliers" link. (These are Pre-Qualification Questionnaires open to any registered supplier)

- Click on the relevant PQQ to access the content.

- Click the “Express Interest” button in the “Actions” box on the left-hand side of the page.

- This will move the PQQ into your “My PQQs” page. (This is a secure area reserved for your projects only)

- Click on the PQQ code, you can now access any attachments by clicking the “Settings and Buyer Attachments” in the “Actions” box

3. Responding to the tender

- You can now choose to “Reply” or “Reject” (please give a reason if rejecting)

- You can now use the ‘Messages’ function to communicate with the buyer and seek any clarification

- Note the deadline for completion, then follow the onscreen instructions to complete the PQQ

- There may be a mixture of online & offline actions for you to perform (there is detailed online help available)

If you require any further assistance please consult the online help, or contact the eTendering help desk.

III.2.2)

Economic and financial standing

III.2.3)

Technical and/or professional capacity

III.2.4)

Reserved contracts

	The contract is restricted to sheltered workshops
	The execution of the contract is restricted to the framework of sheltered employment programmes

Section IV: Procedure

IV.1)

Type of Procedure

IV.1.1)

Type of Procedure

	Restricted
	Accelerated restricted
	Negotiated
	Accelerated negotiated
	Competitive dialogue

Justification for the choice of accelerated procedure

IV.1.2)

Limitations on the number of operators who will be invited to tender or to participate

Objective criteria for choosing the limited number of candidates

IV.1.3)

Reduction of the number of operators during the negotiation or dialogue

Recourse to staged procedure to gradually reduce the number of solutions to be discussed or tenders to be negotiated

IV.3 Administrative Information

IV.3.1)

Reference number attributed to the notice by the contracting authority

IV.3.2)

Previous publication(s) concerning the same contract

	Prior Information Notice
	Notice on a Buyer Profile

Other previous publications

IV.3.3)

Conditions for obtaining specifications and additional documents

IV.3.4)

Time-limit for requests to participate

IV.3.5)

Date of dispatch of invitations to tender or to participate to selected candidates

IV.3.6)

Language or languages in which tenders or requests to participate can be drawn up

Section VI: Complimentary Information

VI.1)

Indicate whether this procurement is a recurrent one and the Estimated timing for further notices to be published

VI.2)

Does the contract relate to a Project/Programme financed by Community Funds?

VI.3)

Additional Information

The Contracting Authority intends to use an e-Tendering system in this procurement exercise, please visit www.contracts.mod.uk for full details and to register your interest in this procurement.

VI.4)

Procedures for appeal

VI.4.1)

Body responsible for appeal procedures

Body responsible for mediation procedures

VI.4.2)

Lodging of appeals
Precise information on deadline(s) for lodging appeals:

VI.4.3)

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

VI.5)

Dispatch date of this Notice