710019452 - MANUFACTURE AND SUPPLY OF REPLACEMENT FIRE DETECTION SYSTEMS FOR VANGUARD CLASS

Tender description

The Ships Marine Systems Support (MSS) Fire and Escape Systems (FES) team, part of the UK Ministry of Defence, Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S), intends to place a contact with Tyco Fire and Integrated Systems Ltd to procure the final two sets of the T2000 Minerva Fire Detection System (FDS). It is considered that the award of the contract without prior publication of a contract notice in the UK e-notification service is lawful in accordance with Regulation 16(1)(a)(ii) for technical reasons. Lot 1: The Ships Marine Systems Support (MSS) Fire and Escape Systems (FES) team, part of the UK Ministry of Defence, Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S), intends to place a contact with Tyco Fire and Integrated Systems Ltd to procure the final two sets of the T2000 Minerva Fire Detection System (FDS). The contact is expected to be 6 months in duration. In accordance with Chapter 4 of the Defence and Security Public Contracts (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (SI2019/697) this procurement is regulated under the provisions of the UK Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011 as amended (in particular by SI 2019/697 and SI 2020/1450), And therefore prior publication of a contract notice in the Official Journal of the European Union is no longer appropriate. It is considered that the award of the contract without prior publication of a contract notice in the UK e-notification service is lawful in accordance with Regulation 16(1)(a)(ii) for technical reasons. This is because the T2000 Minerva FDS is already installed on two of the V-class submarines. This contract will procure the additional two systems required to bring all V-class boats to the same material state and only Tyco Fire and Integrated Systems Ltd are able to supply this particular system. Crew members are routinely moved between vessels for career progression and to cover short term vacancies. The safety of the vessel is highly dependent on the operators and maintainers carrying out the correct actions, at the correct time, in the shortest time possible. To have different FDS on vessels where crew members routinely move between and operate in emergent safety situations, introduces an unacceptable safety risk which prevents the system from being declared as operated with a safety risk ‘As Low As Reasonably Practicable’ (ALARP) which cannot be mitigated by additional training. This would prevent the system from obtaining whole vessel Fire Safety Certification and Magazine Safety Certification.