Floats and Gliders

The Secretary of State for Defence intends to enter into a supply contract with Teledyne for the purchase of 125 Floats and 6 Gliders for use in oceanographic data capture. The duration of the contract will be 2 months and has an estimated value of £3,9M. In accordance with the provisions of The Public Procurement (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 SI No. 2020/1319, this procurement falls to be regulated under the provisions of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 as amended (in particular by SI 2020/1319). Prior publication of a contract notice in the Official Journal of the European Union is no longer appropriate. It is considered that the award of the contract without prior publication of a contract notice in the UK e-notification service (as required by the relevant legislation) is lawful in accordance with regulation 32(5)(b) of the PCR 2015 because these goods consist of additional deliveries by the original supplier, Teledyne, 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. Operating a different type of glider would require new and separate communications architecture to be put into place with attendant cost and potential security impact. Furthermore, there is no single software package that allows you to control different brands of vehicles at once which has direct implications for the intended manner of use for these vehicles.