COSMOS UK MAINTENANCE 2019

This is not a call for competition.CEH have developed a UK-wide network of soil moisture and associated weather monitoring stations known as COSMOS-UK. The network comprises 48 stations across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, each station comprises a range of research grade sensors and associated infrastructure to supply power and data transmission.

We are seeking a new contract to complete maintenance at the COSMOS-UK stations in 2019/20. This contract will include the cost of calibrating and/or procuring new sensors (as required following a condition report), managing the associated stock control and programme of works. COSMOS-UK is a national capability project that underpins a wide range of research. The data generated supplies the UK and international science community. As custodians of this network, it is essential for CEH to ensure smooth operation with consistent and reliable data.

To achieve consistency of data, it is absolutely essential that this geographically distributed network is managed by a single supplier. CEH are therefore contracting to complete this work within the calendar year using the same Supplier (Campbell Scientific Ltd, CSL) that installed the original network. This contract was awarded via the negotiated procedure using Regulation 32 (2bii) and (5b) of The Regulations states "the negotiated procedure without prior publication may be used for public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts (b) where the works, supplies or services can be supplied only by a particular economic operator...(ii) competition is absent for technical reasons, [and] (5) the negotiated procedure without prior publication may be used for public supply contracts (b) for additional deliveries by the original supplier which are intended either as a partial replacement of supplies or installations or as the extension of existing supplies or installations where a change of supplier would oblige the contracting authority to acquire supplies having different technical characteristics which would result in incompatibility or disproportionate technical difficulties in operation and maintenance."