CEFAS22-135 RFQ for a Feasibility Study

The Fisheries Act 2020 states as one of its objectives that "the fishing capacity of fleets is such that fleets are economically viable but do not overexploit marine stocks." (2b). In a similar fashion, the 25-year environment plan aims to ensure that food (including fish) is produced sustainably and profitably. Concepts such as capacity, sustainable production and profitability are defined in economics by productivity theory. Within this theory, simplified, it is stated that production is sustainable if it is technically efficient, and resources are not wasted. Technical efficiency can be measured as well as productivity indicators of a fleet segment generated. Hence, to ensure that the newly established Fisheries Management Plans (FMP) will lead to sustainable fishing also in economic terms as well as the capacity of the fishing fleet is aligned, a productivity assessment of the UK fishing fleet segments would be needed.

To be able to assess what kind of indicator and method to generate productivity measures for the UK fleet and how these will be impacted by the newly established FMP, a feasibility study should help in the first instance to understand what indicators would be best suited and what data is already available.

Therefore the successful Tenderer is required to undertake a feasibility study that will be a literature review on current methods internationally used on:

1. how to measure productivity (capacity, technical efficiency) including Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA) and;
2. which indicators of the ones found in stage 1 are best equipped to measure productivity changes.

It is expected that in the feasibility study the successful Tenderer will highlight the data need for each method reviewed and based on UK data availability, recommend the most feasible way to measure the productivity (and changes) of UK fleet segments.