Underwater mobile acoustic targets for the UK Ministry of Defence

Contract Award Notice for Contract 706857450 - Underwater Mobile Acoustic Targets. This is to state that the contract has been awarded to QinetiQ Limited following a successful and compliant bid. The Secretary of State for Defence intends to enter into a contract with QinetiQ Limited for the UMAT programme. In accordance with regulation 4 of the Defence and Security Public Contracts (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (SI 2019/697) this procurement falls to be regulated under the provisions of the Defence and Security Public Contracs Regulations 2011 as amended (in particular by SI 2019/697 and SI 2020/1450) ("DSPCR 2011"). 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 16(1)(d)(i)(aa) of the DSPCR 2011 because the incumbent subcontractor undertaking the mandated upgrade programme of the UMAT is the only economic operator with the approved licencing and technical capability to upgrade the existing UMAT to maintain the Spearfish Firing Certification. This subcontractor will only maintain a contracting relationship with the current prime. Any change of contractor would require a full reset and restart of the upgrade programme, which would create a significant capability gap of up to 24 months, as any new contractor/subcontractor would require design approval for any suggest upgrades, in addition to ITAR certification from the United States Department of Defence. As the upgrade requirement was an unknown requirement prior to the award of the current incumbent contract, this work was, through unforeseen circumstances, become necessary to fulfil a strategic capability and cannot for technical or economic reasons be carried out separately from the original contract without major inconvenience to the