The Ministry of Defence has begun sounding out the market on a facilities management contract for its bases in the South Atlantic worth an estimated £500 million, covering British forces in both the Falkland Islands and on Ascension Island over a ten-year run, the department has said.
The Defence Infrastructure Organisation, the arm of the Ministry of Defence responsible for the military estate, published a preliminary market engagement notice on 9 June setting out its intention to procure facilities management and support services for British Forces South Atlantic Islands at MOD sites across the Falklands and Ascension.
The work covers both hard facilities management, the maintenance of buildings, infrastructure and engineering systems, and soft facilities management, the catering, cleaning and day-to-day support services that keep a base running.
The contract carries an estimated value of £500 million excluding VAT, rising to £600 million with VAT, and is expected to run for ten years from April 2030 to March 2037, with a possible extension to March 2040. The Defence Infrastructure Organisation says it is seeking a supplier capable of delivering the services across the MOD estate in the region, and has flagged the procurement as particularly suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises, while encouraging firms with experience of delivering facilities management in remote or complex environments to come forward.
As part of its early market engagement, the organisation is inviting suppliers to complete a short survey to capture expressions of interest and understand which elements of the work they might want to deliver, with responses due by the end of December and an initial supplier engagement meeting planned for early September. The procurement is being run under the defence and security special regime, with Crown Commercial Service supporting the process.
The Falkland Islands host one of the United Kingdom’s most significant permanent overseas garrisons, built up after the 1982 conflict and centred on RAF Mount Pleasant, the large air base east of Stanley that anchors the British military presence in the South Atlantic alongside naval and army elements committed to the defence of the islands. Ascension Island, far to the north in the mid-Atlantic, hosts RAF Ascension at Wideawake Airfield, a staging post that has long served as the essential stepping stone for British air and logistics movements between the United Kingdom and the Falklands, as well as supporting wider operations across the South Atlantic.
Sustaining bases of that kind thousands of miles from the United Kingdom, on small islands with limited local infrastructure and long supply chains, is a substantial undertaking, and the scale of the contract reflects the cost of keeping the South Atlantic garrison housed, fed, maintained and operational across a decade.
D.I.O.
Well It’s almost !
I love when the Government taxes contracts it awards. Gives out money with its left hand, takes it back with the right hand. The only point being that it artificially bigs up Defence spending. Very helpful when trying to meet NATO targets. Not so helpful actually providing defence.
Crooks the lot of them.
What taxes? Perhaps look at how VAT is applied before applying text to the internet.
Two frigates worth, only over a decade, for a handful of bases. Support is expensive.
Do other countries get “ripped off”?