PROVISION AND SUPPORT OF A BODY ARMOUR LOAD CARRIAGE SYSTEM (BALCS)

Description

1. The Air Commodities Delivery Team (ACDT) within Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S), part of the UK Ministry of Defence, ("the Authority") intends to award a Contract to Level Peaks Associates Ltd (LPA) ("the Contractor") for the provision of continuing support of the Body Armour Load Carriage System (BALCS) for the Air Defence Environment. 2. The contract will be for a maximum of seven (7) years. The estimated contract value is circa £11M. 3. The purpose of the Contract is to procure, upgrade and maintain the current equipment provided by a through life Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) solution including but not limited to Servicing, Post Design Services & Maintenance. 4. In accordance with regulation 4 of the Defence and Security Public Contracts (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (SI 2019/697) this procurement falls to be regulated under the provisions of the Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011 as amended (in particular by SI 2019/697 and SI 2020/1450). 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 (in accordance with the relevant legislation) is lawful in accordance with regulation 16(1)(a)(ii) of the Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011 for technical reasons. 5. LPA possesses the relevant technical knowledge and holds the sole distribution rights for the provision of BALCS related equipment to the UK Ministry of Defence. The Authority has insufficient rights to pass the necessary data and information to a third party to undertake the requirement, hence LPA is the only economic operator that can provide continued support including to required Military Aviation Authority (MAA) airworthiness standards and certification of the safety and interoperability of the equipment necessary for through-life maintenance.