Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2018-12-01
Buyer: Ministry of Defence, Land Equipment, Dismounted Close Combat (DCC)
Country: UK
Contract type: Supplies
Procedure: Negotiated without a prior call for competition
CPV classification: 35300000: Weapons, ammunition and associated parts
Estimated value: 3000000 GBP
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: This contract will require the supplier to modify the existing MATCON A1 stocks (factory standard) of SA80 LSW and the .22 conversion kits.
It is envisaged that options will be included in the contract to allow the Authority to modify existing stocks of SA80 Light Support Weapons and 0.22 conversion kits and will be detailed in the ITN.
The Dismounted Close Combat programme team, part of the UK Ministry of Defence, intends to place a three-year contract with one 2-year option, for the modification of the existing SA80 LSW A2 and conversion to the SA80 0.22 Small Bore Rifle with NSAF Limited (NSAF), the UK subsidiary of Heckler and Koch GmbH (H&K), the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and Design Authority (DA).
It is considered that this contract can be placed using the Negotiated Procedure without Prior Publication of a Contract Notice pursuant to Article 28(1)(e) of Directive 2009/81/EC (Regulation 16(1)(a)(ii) of the UK Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011) for Technical Reasons. This is because only NSAF, as a subsidiary of H&K, has access to the technical know-how and proprietary documentation necessary to undertake the work required under the contract; this includes: technical drawings, tooling and test equipment, and specific manufacturing processes that includes software programming.
This contract will require the supplier to modify the existing MATCON A1 stocks (factory standard) of SA80 LSW and the .22 conversion kits. This involves combining them into one system to ensure compatibility and, in addition, compliance with Section 1 of The Firearms Act 1968. This is an extremely complex task that will involve precision engineering to the Trigger Mechanism Housing (TMH), the Upper Receiver and the Barrel to ensure that conversion back to a Section 5 weapon of The Firearms Act 1968 is not possible. This involves fitting a combination of new and modified components from existing stocks using precision engineering that only NSAF have the ability to undertake and can ensure the interoperability of the new and modified components with the existing ones whilst maintaining the operational effectiveness and safety of the modified weapons. The required interoperability can only be achieved by NSAF as access the proprietary documents and confidential information, as well as specialist tool and test equipment is necessary to fulfil this requirement.
Only NSAF Limited has access to the specialist test equipment necessary to demonstrate the suitability of the modified weapons for service. The Safety Case for both the SA80 LSW and .22 conversion kit are underwritten by NSAF Limited as subsidiary to the OEM and DA and therefore the only supplier that can endorse that the performance of the weapon following conversion and their engineering expertise is fully compliant with The Firearms Act 1968. Only NSAF have access to the proprietary documents and confidential information required to underwrite the Safety Case for this requirement, which necessarily means only NSAF can perform this requirement.
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-20181127-DCB-13624610


Winner: NSAF Limited
Award value: 3000000