711856454-ADEWS/135-Post Design Services and Industrial Support for the AD Simulator

The Air Defence & Electronics Warfare Delivery Team, part of the Ministry of Defence, intends to award a contract to BAE Systems (Operations) Limited for three years plus two option years, with a value of £2.0 million, to provide Post Design Services and Industrial Support for the Air Defence Training Simulator (ADSIM) at the Defence College of Air and Space Operations. The Cyber Risk Profile for this requirement identified by the Cyber Risk Assessment is Low. (Reference RAR-240516A09).

In accordance with regulation 4 of The Defence and Security Public Contracts (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (SI 2019/697) this contract 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 this contract can be awarded without prior publication of a contract notice in the UK e-notification service in accordance with regulation 16(1)(a)(ii) of the Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011 for technical reasons.

This is because BAE Systems (Operations) Limited is the Design Authority for ADSIM and has the expertise, know-how and technical documentation (including in particular the source code for the software) necessary to both safely maintain ADISM and enhance it to meet future requirements. A new supplier would need to reverse engineer the software. This would introduce unacceptable risk to the integrity of ADSIM, its functionality and its operational effectiveness, and as a consequence risk to personnel and equipment.