Call off for Special Financial Support

In assuming our role as the regulator, we must be able to react quickly to events outside of our control and triggered by the market. In fulfilling our statutory duties we must ensure the skills and expertise are available to undertake any assessment as it occurs and to mitigate the impact on customers. This call off contract will form part of our risk mitigation and management strategy.

This call off Contract follows a Phase 1 call off Contract previously procured in February 2018 for short term support to deliver specific work in relation to financial resilience of the companies which we regulate.

We now seek to put in place a wider long term arrangement for the provision of specialist advisory services which may result in one of the areas of work set out in the overall objectives and scope sections of this document. We seek to ensure that we have the necessary support in place to allow us to respond to issues which may impact on a company's financial resilience including matters of financial distress and special administration as well as support in other areas where we might have to assess Merger or Acquisition.

The requirement is divided up into 4 workstreams:

Workstream 1: Financial Resilience - Analysis of a company's financial position and any possible interventions that may be required

Workstream 2: Financial Distress - An entity has a known issue and are likely to be close to or in a position of financial distress

Workstream 3: Special Administration - Providing advice to Ofwat where a company is the subject of a Special Administration order

Workstream 4: Other Workstreams - Analysis of complex transactions/infrastructure procurement and delivery and/or assessment of an Interim Determination of K (IDoK), a mid-period price review action to adjust prices for the current price control period.

To assist in our planning, we propose a call off contract with multiple Contractors with a sufficiently wide scope to cover a range of scenarios, who have demonstrated they should be awarded the Contract through the evaluation process. The number will be dependent on the quality of the bids. This is to mitigate against any conflicts of interest and capacity issues.

Contractors are able to bid for one or more workstreams. We are looking to appoint up to 4 Contractors for each workstream, who are best suited to supply services for the particular workstream. However, the final number will be dependent on the quality of the bids which may mean the number of appointed Contractors may be greater or lower than stated. The section on call off of Services outlines the process for activation of the call off.

The Contract term will be for TWO years from Contract commencement date with an option for a ONE year extension. Framework rates are to be fixed for the initial 2 years of the Contract.

Please refer to the ITT for more information.

Additional information: For further information, please contact: procurement@ofwat.gov.uk