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Type of document: Invitation to tender
Country: United Kingdom
OJEU Ref: (2018/S 069-154104/EN)
Nature of contract: Service contract
Procedure: Negotiated procedure
Regulation of procurement: EU

Contract notice
Services
Directive 2009/81/EC
Section I: Contracting authority
I.1) Name addresses and contact point(s):
Ministry of Defence, C&C, Other
HOCS Commercial, 3-G, Ministry of Defence Main Building, Whitehall
London
Postal code: SW1A 2HB
United Kingdom
Contact points(s): Sukhi Rai
Phone: +44 2072189182
Email: DBSMilPers-FSDCProjectTeam@mod.gov.uk
Internet Address(es):
General address of the contracting authority: www.mod.gov.uk
Further information can be obtained from: The above mentioned contact point(s)
Specifications and additional documents (including documents for competitive dialogue and a dynamic purchasing system) can be obtained from: The above mentioned contact point(s)
Tenders or requests to participate must be sent to: The above mentioned contact point(s)
I.2) Type of the contracting authority:
Ministry or any other national or federal authority, including their regional or local sub-divisions
I.3) Main activity:
Defence
I.4) Contract award on behalf of other contracting authorities/entities:
The contracting authority is purchasing on behalf of other contracting authorities: No
Section II: Object of the contract:
II.1) Description:
II.1.1) Title attributed to the contract by the contracting authority/entity: Future Service Delivery Contract (FSDC): Provision of Armed Forces Pay, Pensions and Military HR and Administrative Services
II.1.2) Type of contract and location of works, place of delivery or of performance:
Services
Service category No 26: Recreational, cultural and sporting services
Main site or location of works, place of delivery or of performance: United Kingdom.
Nuts code:
II.1.3) Information about a public contract, a framework agreement or a dynamic purchasing system (DPS)
II.1.4) Information on framework agreement
II.1.5) Short description of the specific contract:Administrative services for business operations. Information technology services. Call centre. Personnel and payroll services. Miscellaneous business and business-related services. Pension services. The proposed FSDC will cover the Armed Forces and Veterans Defence Business Services (DBS) services that are currently outsourced, which at a high level consist of:a. A variety of personnel support services for the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force, in the form of Joint personnel administration (JPA), which is the MOD’s current Military Payroll and Expenses HR system, and pensions; andb. The development and maintenance of a range of supporting Information system (IS) applications and elements of IS infrastructure.This FSDC contract will:a. Enable the radical transformation and modernisation of these services;b. Continually develop change management and ways of working; andc. Potentially expand the current contract scope by including services currently carried out in house by Defence.A detailed Service requirement document (SRD) and Data room has been developed and will be issued to those potential providers who are successful at the Pre-qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) stage as part of the Invitation to negotiate (ITN) documentation.
II.1.6) Common procurement vocabulary (CPV): 75112000, 72222300, 79512000, 79631000, 79900000, 66520000,
II.1.7) Information about Government Procurement Agreement (GPA):
The contract is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA):
II.1.8) Lots:
The contract is divided into lots: No
II.1.9) Information about variants:
Variants will be accepted: NO
II.2) Quantity or scope of the contract:
II.2.1) Total quantity or scope:
The accompanying Information memorandum provides background information and an overview of the scale and scope of the services to be delivered, including the commercial approach to the negotiation, evaluation and contract. The key components of the FSDC requirement are listed below:
a. Payroll and expenses, controls and accounting services (including financial accounting with interfaces to other MOD and other Government Department (OGD) systems);
b. Maintenance of personnel records (over 10M including wills and military documents);
c. The administration of several Military pension and Compensation schemes (including payment and financial accounting with interfaces to other MOD and Other Government Department (OGD) financial systems);
d. An Information system (IS) service in support of JPA, Pensions and compensation schemes and a broad range of complementary applications and interfaces;
e. A Personnel Administration Centre incorporating User access control (UAC), with an incident and issue management matrix and capability including an Enquiry service, with multiple support channels for self-service, professional and corporate users of JPA, Pensions, Compensation schemes and IS/Information technology (IT);
f. The provision of Personnel services in support of the Armed Forces with significant Business processing operations (BPO);
g. Delivery of a full change programme to both Information technology operations (ITO) and BPO. Provide a more flexible approach to the change delivery process.
h. The MOD will rely upon a successful contract to enable their own change strategies for personnel to be delivered; and
i. Engagement with multiple third parties on behalf of DBS.
The delivery of these services/outputs will initially be supported by a range of existing applications and technologies that are already in place; these include Oracle Human resource management system (HRMS) configured to deliver JPA, plus various Compensation and pensions systems (with varying degrees of integration to JPA). In addition there are several other complementary applications and a Management information platform. Multiple interfaces exist between internally hosted applications and also with external organisations and their applications.
The IS service requirement is to manage and maintain all IT services in accordance with mature IT service management (ITSM) practices. The ITSM provisions will include, but not limited to, ensuring service provision is compliant with overall requirements, applying any necessary upgrades/patches, ensuring licensing and security compliance, ensuring tactical and transformational changes are non-impactive to operational services, ensuring the Authority have access to suitable levels of service information and ensuring a suitable service strategy is developed and maintained.
The FSDC must:
a. Continue service delivery through the safe, secure and effective transfer of service between commercial arrangements to a steady state and beyond;
b. Deliver improvements to the service in order to meet user needs of Defence (at all levels), including through digital self-service;
c. Deliver strategic transformation of the service through the introduction of technology insertion/replacement, and improved and expanded self-service functionality – in line with accessibility, Technology code of practice and Government digital standards;
d. Improve and expand the Management information capability that is delivered to the consumers of the service, i.e. the single services and other Authority professional users; and
e. Transition towards a more modularised and disaggregated service.
The Authority recognises the need for enterprise wide changes to facilitate this, which will include, but not be limited to:
a. Organisation, Process and governance transformation: Matured ITSM approaches, improved business change processes, improved innovation, and enhanced collaboration and transparency between supplier and authority;
b. Information and data management transformation: Data architecture changes, making better use of data and ensuring ongoing compliance with current and new security and privacy standards; and
c. Application and technology transformation: Enhancing user access options, improving functionality to better address user needs, increased standardisation and decoupling of technology components leading to more portable services and allowing consumption of other hosted/cloud options (including shared MOD services), and overall improved use of assets.
Optional services.
Options will be sought for the following services that are currently delivered in house:
a. Administration of the war pensions scheme and Armed forces compensation scheme (including payment and financial accounting with interfaces to other MOD and OGD financial systems);
b. MOD Medal office – the administration and issue of medals and awards;
c. Provision of Veterans enabling and supporting services; and
d. Maintenance and development of existing Information system (IS) and enquiry Services in support of the above services.
The Authority reserves the right to include / add any other work related to delivery of Military human resources or Veterans services during the lifetime of the contract.
The duration of the contract will be a maximum of 7 years subject to value for money to the Authority to be determined through the negotiation process.
Estimated value excluding VAT:
Range: between 410 000 000 and 800 000 000 GBP
II.2.2) Information about options:
Options: no
II.2.3) Information about renewals:
II.3) Duration of the contract or time limit for completion

Section III: Legal, economic, financial and technical information
III.1) Conditions relating to the contract
III.1.1) Deposits and guarantees required:
The Authority reserves the right to request bank and/or parent company guarantees and/or other guarantees of performance, payment and financial capacity.
III.1.2) Main financing conditions and payment arrangements and/or reference to the relevant provisions governing them:
Conditions relating to financing and payment will be specified in the contractual documentation.
III.1.3) Legal form to be taken by the group of economic operators to whom the contract is to be awarded:
If a group of economic operators submits a bid, the group must nominate a lead organisation to deal with the Authority. The Authority shall require the group to form a legal entity before entering into the contract.
III.1.4) Other particular conditions
The performance of the contract is subject to particular conditions: yes
Description of particular conditions: Potential providers should be familiar with and comply at all times with the Data Protection Act 1998 and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The successful bidder will be required to handle very large volumes of personal data in order to fulfil the requirements of the contract. This data or its handling cannot be off-shored; it must be stored, processed, accessed and managed within the United Kingdom. The Data processed is classified as Official Sensitive Personal however owing to the aggregation of data, the size of financial transactions undertaken and handling requirements in regard to protected populations recorded, the system is in numerous respects protected to a level above the baseline (equivalent to IL3/IL5) as detailed within the following guidance: details will be contained within a Security and personal data aspects letter, which will be issued with the ITN. Potential providers must provide evidence of their ability to handle classified information at this level of protection, together with evidence of their sub-contractors’ ability to handle classified information at this level of protection, where they are relying on sub-contractors to provide significant capability or capacity. The successful bidder should hold ISO 27001 accreditation or equivalent. Potential Providers should be aware of the requirement for staff to hold Personal Security Clearances which can take in excess of eight weeks to be granted but can take longer in some cases dependant on the level of vetting required (Developed Vetting / Security Check).Information on Government Security Classifications can be found at: on Government Security Clearances can be found at: Authority reserves the right to amend any condition related to security of information to reflect any changes in national law or government policy. If any contract documents are accompanied by a Security aspects letter or Security and Personal data aspects letter, the Authority reserves the right to amend the terms of the Security aspects letter to reflect any changes in national law or government policy whether in respect of the applicable protective marking scheme, specific protective markings given, the aspects to which any protective marking applies or otherwise.A Cyber risk assessment has been carried out for this requirement and the risk has been assessed as High. Potential providers invited to negotiate should log on at the address below and carry out a Supplier assurance questionnaire (SAQ), the results of which will need to be submitted along with their tender response. Further details will be issued with the ITN. providers should be aware that transfer of undertakings (Protection of employment) Regulations (TUPE) may apply. The services are currently undertaken by Industry, with the exception of those ‘Optional services’ as described in Section II.2.1. which are currently delivered by the Authority.
III.2) Conditions for participation
III.2.1) Personal situation of economic operators, including requirements relating to enrolment on professional or trade registers
The Authority will apply all the offences listed in Article 39(1) of Directive 2009/81/EC (implemented as Regulation 23(1) of the Defence and security public contract regulations (DSPCR) 2011 in the UK) and all of the professional misconducts listed at Article 39(2) of Directive 2009/81/EC (see also Regulation 23(2) in the DSPCR 2011) to the decision of whether a Candidate is eligible to be invited to tender.A full list of the Regulation 23(1) and 23(2) criteria are at will be required to sign a declaration confirming whether they do or do not have any of the listed criteria as part of the pre-qualification process.Candidates who have been convicted of any of the offences under Article 39(1) are ineligible and will not be selected to bid, unless there are overriding requirements in the general interest (including defence and security factors) for doing so.Candidates who are guilty of any of the offences, circumstances or misconduct under Article 39(2) may be excluded from being selected to bid at the discretion of the Authority.In addition to the above the MOD will apply all the offences listed in Regulation 23(4) of the Defence and security public contract regulations (DSPCR) 2011 to the decision of whether a Potential Purchaser is eligible to be invited to tender.
III.2.2) Economic and financial ability
(a) Appropriate statements from the economic operator’s bankers or where appropriate, evidence of relevant professional risk indemnity insurance(b) The presentation of balance-sheets or extracts from the balance-sheets, where publication of the balance-sheet is required under the law of the country in which the economic operator is established(c) where appropriate, a statement, covering the 3 previous financial years of the economic operator, of: (i) the overall turnover of the business of the economic operator; and (ii) where appropriate, the turnover in respect of the work, works, goods or services which are of a similar type to the subject matter of the contract.The following additional financial information will be required for pre qualification in accordance with Regulation 24 of the DSPCR 2011:— Alternative means of demonstrating financial status (if trading less than a year).— 3 years of certified audited accounts in statutory form, including profit and loss account, balance sheet and a cash flow statement.The Authority will request this information through a formal pre-qualification questionnaire which will be issued to parties that respond to this contract notice expressing an interest.In addition to the above the Authority also reserves the right to request any additional information which it considers necessary in order to demonstrate that the Potential Provider has sufficient economic and financial resources to deliver the contract.
Minimum level(s) of standards possibly required: (a) Appropriate statements from the economic operator’s bankers or where appropriate, evidence of relevant professional risk indemnity insurance(b) The presentation of balance-sheets or extracts from the balance-sheets, where publication of the balance-sheet is required under the law of the country in which the economic operator is established(c) where appropriate, a statement, covering the 3 previous financial years of the economic operator, of: (i) the overall turnover of the business of the economic operator; and (ii) where appropriate, the turnover in respect of the work, works, goods or services which are of a similar type to the subject matter of the contract.The following additional financial information will be required for pre qualification in accordance with Regulation 24 of the DSPCR 2011:— Alternative means of demonstrating financial status (if trading less than a year).— 3 years of certified audited accounts in statutory form, including profit and loss account, balance sheet and a cash flow statement.The Authority will request this information through a formal pre-qualification questionnaire which will be issued to parties that respond to this contract notice expressing an interest.In addition to the above the Authority also reserves the right to request any additional information which it considers necessary in order to demonstrate that the Potential Provider has sufficient economic and financial resources to deliver the contract.The estimated annual contract value is 50 000 000 GBP. If the estimated annual contract value is greater than 25 % of the supplier’s turnover, the Authority reserves the right to exclude the supplier from being selected to tender except where the supplier provides, to the satisfaction of the Authority, evidence showing it has sufficient economic and financial capability, e.g. such evidence may include:(1) Any additional information proving it has sufficient economic and financial resources to deliver the requirement; and(2) State whether the supplier is willing to provide the Authority with an indemnity, guarantee or bank bond.A financial assessment will be undertaken on the supplier’s financial status. An overall pass / fail judgement will be made after considering areas such as turnover, profit, net assets, liquidity, gearing and capacity. This assessment will include the Parent company where applicable. An independent financial assessment obtained from a reputable credit rating organisation will be utilised as part of this process.
III.2.3) Technical capacity
Information and formalities necessary for evaluating if the requirements are met: (m) in the case of contracts involving, entailing or containing classified information, evidence of the ability to process, store and transmit such information at the level of protection required by the contracting authorityThe Authority will request the information listed above and other information through a formal Pre-qualification Questionnaire.In addition to the above the Authority also reserves the right to request any additional information which it considers necessary in order to demonstrate that the Potential Provider has sufficient technical and/or professional capacity to deliver the contract.
Minimum level(s) of standards possibly required: Minimum standards are set out in the PQQ and section III.1.4 of this Notice.
III.2.4) Information about reserved contracts
III.3) Conditions specific to services contracts
III.3.1) Information about a particular profession
Execution of the service is reserved to a particular profession:
III.3.2) Staff responsible for the execution of the service
Legal persons should indicate the names and professional qualifications of the staff responsible for the execution of the service: YES
Section IV: Procedure
IV.1) Type of procedure
IV.1.1) Type of procedure
Negotiated
IV.1.2) Limitations on the number of operators who will be invited to tender or to participate
Envisaged number of operators:4
Objective criteria for choosing the limited number of candidates:
Potential providers must read this set of instructions, the guidance contained within the Pre-qualification Questionnaire (PQQ), the PQQ Evaluation and clarification guidance document and the Information memorandum and follow the process to respond to this opportunity. Potential providers wishing to express an interest in this requirement must do so through the submission of a valid PQQ response linked to this Contract notice.The information and/or documents for this opportunity are available on You must register on this site to respond, if you are already registered you will not need to register again, simply use your existing username and password. Please note there is a password reminder link on the homepage.Potential Providers must log in, go to your Response manager section and add the following Access code: 8XM7S6D5ET. Please ensure you follow any instruction provided to you here.Interested parties are required to complete the PQQ (which can found within the DCO) to provide information that allows the Authority to evaluate the tenderer’s capacities and capabilities against the selection criteria set out at Sections III.2.1), III.2.2) and III.2.3) of this Contract Notice.The Authority will use the PQQ response to create a shortlist of Potential Providers who:(1) are eligible to participate under Section III.2.1) of this Contract Notice; and(2) fulfil any minimum standards under Sections III.2.2) and III.2.3) of this Contract notice.Full details of the method for downselecting the Potential providers and of the clarification process that will be in operation will be set out in the PQQ Evaluation and Clarification Guidance document available within the DCO using the above referenced access code.The deadline for submitting your response(s) is 7.5.2018 23:55. Please ensure that you allow yourself plenty of time when responding to this invite prior to the closing date and time, especially if you have been asked to upload documents.If you experience any difficulties please refer to the online Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) or the User Guides or contact the MOD DCO Helpdesk by emailing — support@contracts.mod.uk or call 0800 282 324.Whilst the Authority is not intending to reduce the number of Potential providers during the negotiation phase, it reserves the right to do so.
IV.1.3) Reduction of the number of operators during the negotiation or dialogue
IV.2) Award criteria
The most economically advantageous tender in terms of the criteria stated in the specifications, in the invitation to tender or to negotiate or in the descriptive document
IV.2.2) Information about electronic auction

IV.3) Administrative information
IV.3.1) File reference number attributed by the contracting authority/entity
HOCS4/00015
IV.3.2) Previous publication(s) concerning the same contract
Prior information notice
Notice number in the OJEU:2017/S 139-286714of22.07.2017
IV.3.3) Conditions for obtaining specifications and additional documents or descriptive document
Payable documents: Yes
IV.3.4) Time limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate
07.05.2018 – 23:59
IV.3.5) Date of dispatch of invitations to tender or to participate to selected candidates
IV.3.6) Language(s) in which tenders or requests to participate may be drawn up
EN
IV.3.7) Minimum time frame during which the tenderer must maintain the tender
In days:
IV.3.8) Conditions for opening of tenders

Section VI: Complementary information
VI.1) Information about recurrence
This is a recurrent procurement: No
VI.2) Information about European Union funds
The contract is related to a project and/or programme financed by European Union funds: No
VI.3) Additional information
The Authority intends to use the Commerce decisions Ltd Award software tool to assist in the management of the PQQ evaluation and the tender evaluation.
Suppliers interested in working with the Ministry of Defence should register on the MOD Supplier Information Database (SID) Register, available at www.contracts.mod.uk The MOD SID is a database of active and potential suppliers available to all MOD and UK Defence procurement personnel, and is the main supplier database of MOD Procurement organisations. Please note: the registration and publication of a company profile on the MOD SID does not mean or imply that the supplier has in any way been vetted or approved by the MOD.
The Authority reserves the right to up-issue any part of the ITN documentation (which may also include the negotiation format) during any time of the procurement leading to contract award.
Prospective providers should note that the issue of this Notice is not a commitment by the Authority to place a contract as a result of this competition or at a later stage. Any expenditure, work or effort undertaken prior to any offer and subsequent acceptance of contract, is a matter solely for the commercial judgement of Prospective providers.
The Authority reserves the right to choose not to award any contract as a result of the current procurement process. Prospective providers will bear all costs associated with expressing an interest and submitting a PQQ and, if invited to tender, with preparing and submitting a tender. If the tender process is terminated or amended by the Authority, the Authority will not reimburse Prospective providers.
Advertising regime OJEU: — This contract opportunity is published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), the MOD Defence Contracts Online: www.contracts.mod.uk, Contracts Finder: and the Defence Procurement Twitter account.
Electronic Trading: Potential suppliers must note the mandatory requirement for electronic trading using the Contracting, Purchasing and Finance (CP&F) electronic procurement tool. All payments for Contractor Deliverables under the Contract shall only be made via CP&F. You can find details on CP&F at:
GO Reference: GO-201846-DCB-12184189
VI.4) Procedures for appeal
VI.4.1) Body responsible for appeal procedures:
Ministry of Defence, C&C, Other
London
United Kingdom
VI.5) Date of dispatch of this notice:
06.04.2018

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