B.O 2 Award for services · UK public procurement notice

This contract will be awarded under the following grounds:

This contract is an applicable Defence and Security Contract as outlined within the Procurement Act 2023 based on 7(f) “a contract for the supply of—[…]sensitive services or sensitive works”

““sensitive services” means services performed for security purposes where performing the services— (a)involves dealing with classified information” “classified information” means information or other material which— (a) in the interests of national security, requires protection from unauthorised access, distribution, or destruction, or from other compromise, and (b) on the basis of those interests, has that protection under the law of any part of the United Kingdom;”

4.5 As this project is held at Official Sensitive classification it is applicable to be sensitive services.

As it is an applicable Defence & Security contract then the direct award justification can be applied subject to this supplier not being Excluded. The supplier identified is Montvieux Limited which is NOT an excluded supplier.

Within schedule 5 the direct award justification to be utilised is as follows: The public contract concerns the production of a prototype, or supply of other novel goods or services, for the purpose of— (a) testing the suitability of the goods or services, (b)researching the viability of producing or supplying the goods or services at scale and developing them for that purpose, or (c)other research, experiment, study or development.

Based on the statement of requirements of this contract, the direct award justification outlined above applies and there is a compliant mechanism to award this contract. The services outlined are deemed as novel as this is a first time development not just for the UK but also for NATO. Additionally the purpose of this work is to test the viability of those services and it still sits firmly within experimentation. Should this project reach maturity and no longer be in experimental stage the approach will be reviewed.