The Provision of Vehicle Collision Repair Contingency PAYG Contract

The contracting authority awards this contract under the regulation 32 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (use of the negotiated procedure without prior publication), primarily under regulation 32(2)(c) where, for reasons of extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable by the contracting authority, the time limits for the open or restricted procedures or competitive procedures with negotiation cannot be complied with. The factual basis to support this activity arises from the administration process regarding the originally awarded contractor resulting in a complete end to services. Consequently the contracting authority had to at pace insource a number of critical services to provide to itself as well as engage elements of the previously established and on-boarded supply chain for services it is not able to provide to itself.

For services the contracting authority cannot provide to itself it also applies regulation 32(2)(b)(ii) where, for technical reasons competition is absent, specifically where on-boarding of economic entities outside of the previous supply chain is not possible without causing the contracting authority to suffer a complete absence of service provision across a number of critical areas for an indefinite period. Accordingly, the specific choice of economic operator is on the basis of extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable by the contracting authority coupled with an absence of competition, for technical reasons, due to the economic operator's capability to on-board within the contracting authority's timescales and meet its essential technical requirements. The selection of the award economic operator is not the result of an artificial narrowing down of the parameters of the procurement by the contracting authority and no reasonable alternative or substitute exists.