Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2020-08-07
Buyer: Ministry of Defence, Air Support, Flight Simulation and Synthetic Trainers Project Team (FSAST PT)
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Negotiated without a prior call for competition
CPV classification: 34152000 | 39162200 | 50000000
Estimated value: 350000 GBP
Award criteria: Lowest price

Technical requirements: The Cyber Risk Profile for this requirement identified by the Cyber Risk Assessment is Low (Reference – RAR-Y28ASCJJ).
The Flight Simulation and Synthetic Training (FsAST) Team, part of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (‘the Authority’) intends to enter into a contract with a duration that is expected to be up to 6 years (this may include options) with Vacuum Furnace Engineering Ltd (VFE) for the support and maintenance of the hypobaric chamber training and test facility at RAF Henlow. The equipment consists of a pressure vessel for human occupancy and simulates the effects of high altitude, up to 45 000 ft, on the human body.
• annual maintenance, servicing and safety checks to all elements of the equipment, including air-conditioning plant equipment, vacuum pumps and receivers and associated plant;
• acting as the design organisation advise the Authority on likely effects of changes in legislation or technical design of equipment;
• provide a Post Design Services (PDS) support solution to investigate faults and ensuring all faults are addressed and completed to the authority’s satisfaction.
It is considered that this contract can be procured using the negotiated procedure without prior publication of a contract notice pursuant to Article 32(2)(b)(ii) of Directive 2014/24/EU (Regulation 32(2)(b)(ii) of the Public Contracts Regulations). This is because competition is absent for technical reasons as only VFE, as the original equipment manufacturer and design organisation, have the necessary know-how, experience, design data and source code to carry out the support and maintenance required. Only VFE have the necessary technical specifications and design drawings for the hypobaric chamber; and the underlying source code for the software control system, to meet the authority’s requirements. Further, without this know-how, experience, design data and source code, a third-party supplier would not be able to meet the strict safety requirements critical to the safe functioning of the system.
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-202083-DCB-16908623


Winner: Vacuum Furnace Engineering Ltd
Award value: 350000