Public procurement notice: Contract Notice
Published: 2019-10-17
Buyer: Ministry of Defence, ISTAR, Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Delivery Team (CBRN DT)
Country: UK
Contract type: Supplies
Procedure: Restricted procedure
CPV classification: 38540000
Estimated value:  GBP
Submission deadline: 2019-11-13
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: Machines and apparatus for testing and measuring. The Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Delivery Team (CBRN DT), from hereon in referred to as the authority, are responsible for the procurement, delivery and in service support of CBRN equipment to detect, inform, protect, treat and decontaminate CBRN threats for the British Armed Forces.
The authority has a requirement for the supply of Respirator Test Devices (RTD(s)) used to test the fit factor of in-service respirators, including the General Service Respirator (GSR) which is the standard issue respirator used by British service personnel.
The RTD is an air sampling unit which is the key piece of equipment in the Respirator Test Measurement System (RTMS). The RTMS comprises a diluter assembly, aerosol generator, fan assembly with air filter, CBRN laptop, maskfit software and an aerosol containment facility which is used to simulate a CBRN environment for the particulate testing of respirators.
The RTMS constitutes 2 systems known as the Respirator Test System (RTS) and the Advanced Respirator Test System (ARTS) which are used to provide the particulate testing of respirators on ordinary CBRN personnel and CBRN specialists.
The aim of the RTMS is to ensure that each individual Respirator worn by service personnel is fitted correctly, confirming that the seal between the respirator and users face provides appropriate protection against Chemical War Agents (CWA) and Toxic Industrial Chemicals (TIC) which may be encountered in a CBRN environment.
The authority require the supply of Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) RTDs that must inter-operate and integrate with all components of the RTMS to meet the authority’s requirement.
Payment shall follow delivery and acceptance of the goods. A payment plan shall be considered with clear deliverables/outputs associated with proposed payments for the authority's consideration through CP&F.
If a group of economic operators submits a bid, the group must nominate a lead organisation to deal with the authority. The authority shall require the group to form a legal entity before entering into the contract.
The authority reserves the right to amend any condition related to security of information to reflect any changes in national law or government policy. If any contract documents are accompanied by a security aspects letter, the authority reserves the right to amend the terms of the security aspects letter to reflect any changes in national law or government policy whether in respect of the applicable protective marking scheme, specific protective markings given, the aspects to which any protective marking applies or otherwise.
The authority will apply all the offences listed in Article 39(1) of Directive 2009/81/EC (implemented as Regulation 23(1) of the Defence and Security Public Contract Regulations (DSPCR) 2011 in the UK) and all of the professional misconducts listed at Article 39(2) of Directive 2009/81/EC (see also Regulation 23(2) in the DSPCR 2011) to the decision of whether a candidate is eligible to be invited to tender.
A full list of the Regulation 23(1) and 23(2) criteria are at http://www.contracts.mod.uk/delta/project/reasonsForExclusion.html#dspr
Candidates will be required to sign a declaration confirming whether they do or do not have any of the listed criteria as part of the pre-qualification process.
Candidates who have been convicted of any of the offences under Article 39(1) are ineligible and will not be selected to bid, unless there are overriding requirements in the general interest (including defence and security factors) for doing so.
Candidates who are guilty of any of the offences, circumstances or misconduct under Article 39(2) may be excluded from being selected to bid at the discretion of the authority.
Please provide a statement as a declaration of good standing within the pre-qualification questionnaire response.

Eligibility requirements: (a) appropriate statements from the economic operator's bankers or where appropriate, evidence of relevant professional risk indemnity insurance; (b) the presentation of balance-sheets or extracts from the balance-sheets, where publication of the balance-sheet is required under the law of the country in which the economic operator is established; (c) where appropriate, a statement, covering the three previous financial years of the economic operator, of: (i) the overall turnover of the business of the economic operator; and (ii) where appropriate, the turnover in respect of the work, works, goods or services which are of a similar type to the subject matter of the contract. Due to the estimated contract value the authority requests audited accounts (or equivalent) from the past 24 months, to be provided through the pre-qualification questionnaire response. The authority may request further information regarding these accounts.
If the estimated contract value is greater than 40 % of the supplier's turnover, the authority reserves the right to exclude the supplier from being selected to tender except where the supplier provides, to the satisfaction of the authority, evidence showing it has sufficient economic and financial capability, for example such evidence may include: 1) Any additional information proving it has sufficient economic and financial resources to deliver the requirement; and 2) Stating whether the supplier is willing to provide the authority with an indemnity, guarantee or bank bond. A financial assessment will be undertaken on the supplier's financial status. An overall pass/fail judgement will be made after considering areas such as turnover, profit, net assets, liquidity, gearing and capacity. This assessment will include the parent company where applicable. An independent financial assessment obtained from a reputable credit rating organisation may be utilised as part of this process.