Offsite Records Storage

Tender description

The National Archives (TNA) is the official archive and publisher for the UK government, and for England and Wales, holding official records containing 1,000 years of history. Our role is to collect and to secure the future of the government record, both digital and physical, to preserve it for generations to come, and to make it as accessible and available as possible. Our collection is one of the largest in the world, containing over 11 million historical government and public records. From Domesday Book to modern government papers and digital files, our collection includes paper and parchment, digital records and websites, photographs, posters, maps, drawings and paintings.We are a non-ministerial department and our parent department is the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. More information on TNA can be found at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk. Currently, the majority of the physical records selected for preservation at TNA are held at TNA's site in Kew, Richmond, Surrey with further contracted storage located offsite in Winsford, Cheshire. With the current offsite storage contract coming to an end, The National Archives is undertaking a procurement exercise to select a supplier (or suppliers) to provide secure offsite storage for an existing 40 linear kilometres of paper and parchment records with a further requirement to increase that storage at an accrual rate of around 1 linear kilometre per annum. The proposed contract is for a 15 year period, with two extension options of up to 5 years each. TNA may decide to split this requirement into two separate lots, hence the reference to 'a supplier or suppliers' above. The storage must meet the environmental conditions stated in "BS EN16893:2018 Conservation of Cultural Heritage - Specifications for location, construction and modification of buildings or rooms intended for the storage or use of heritage collections". We also require the appointed supplier(s) to provide a retrieval and collection service operating between the storage facility and The National Archives at Kew, Richmond, Surrey. The records stored will typically be of low use, and it is expected that the individual retrieval rate will be in the order of 6,000 annually. The National Archives envisages shortlisting a maximum of 5 potential suppliers to respond to its Invitation to Tender for this requirement, subsequent to the evaluation of the Standard Selection Questionnaires (SSQs) received. Our evaluation of the SSQs received will be based on the information submitted in response to the selection questions in Section 6. The deadline for the submission of SSQs to procurement@nationalarchives.gov.uk is 5pm on June 14th, 2019. A supplier briefing event is planned on May 29th 2019 at 2pm. If you would like to attend, please email us at procurement@nationalarchives.gov.uk. The National Archives intends to issue the ITT to shortlisted suppliers on July 1st 2019 with tender submissions due by August 30th 2019.