Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2016-12-22
Buyer: Ministry of Defence, Land Equipment, Other
Country: UK
Region: Telford and Wrekin
Contract type: Supplies
Procedure: Negotiated without a prior call for competition
CPV classification: 35410000: Armoured military vehicles
Estimated value: 16250000 GBP

Technical requirements: The Thermal Imaging System (TIS) within the Challenger II Main Battle Tank (MBT) provides both the gunner and the commander with a dual magnification thermal picture with a superimposed aiming mark.
The TI System will suffer critical obsolescence with current estimates indicating that the Challenger II fleet will be impacted between 2018 and 2023. Whilst there is a parallel project (Challenger II Life Extension Project) scheduled to deliver in 2023 to solve this and a number of other obsolescence issues, it is forecasted that obsolescence issues in the TI System will impact prior to this date. Therefore an interim solution is required to sustain the Thermal Imaging capability until any future replacement is delivered into service.
The Vehicle Support Team — Armoured Tracks, part of the Ministry of Defence, intends to place a four year supply contract with BAE Systems Global Combat Systems Ltd. (‘the Contractor’) for the Demonstration and Manufacture of a modification to the Challenger II Thermal Imaging (TI) System.
It is considered that this Contract can be placed using the Negotiated Procedure Without Prior Publication of a Contract Notice, pursuant to Articles 28(1)(e) and 28(3)(a) of Directive 2009/81/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council  (Regulations 16(1)(a)(ii) and 16(1)(b)(i) of the UK Defence and Security Public Contract Regulations 2011 respectively) for ‘technical’ reasons and for reasons relating to incompatibility with existing goods.
Only the Contractor, as the Design Authority and Original Equipment Manufacturer for the Challenger II platform, has access to the design and technical information, expertise, and know-how necessary to provide the modification. A third party would not be able to carry out this work without access to this necessary design and technical information which is required to enable the integration of any new components and the subsequent modification of existing sub-systems for interfacing with safety critical weapon systems. This information is not available to the authority as it is owned by the contractor in their role as the Design Authority and the authority does not have the necessary rights to that information to provide to any third party.
There is a strict technical impracticality for a supplier other than the contractor to fulfil the activity associated with the updating and approval of the Platform Safety Case within the required timescales, and to the necessary standard and to the reasonable satisfaction of the authority.
Furthermore the goods being provided are a partial replacement for and in addition to existing goods provided by the contractor, and to obtain goods from another supplier would oblige the authority to acquire goods having technical characteristics which would result in incompatibility between the existing goods and the new goods.
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 instructions on safeguarding classified information (e.g. a Security Aspects Letter), the authority reserves the right to amend the terms of these instructions 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 link below to the Gov.uk website provides information on the Government Security Classification.
Advertising Regime OJEU: this contract opportunity is published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), the MoD Defence Contracts Bulletin and www.contracts.mod.uk GO Reference: GO-20161219-DCB-9278911.


Award value: 16250000