The Ministry of Defence has announced a direct award of a new single-source contract for parachute packing and maintenance services to IrvinGQ Limited, valued at up to £26 million.
This decision follows a failed competitive process aimed at recompeting the requirement.
According to the tender notice, “The C-17 Command Support and Airborne Equipment (C17CSAE) team as part of the United Kingdom (UK) Ministry of Defence (MOD) has a requirement to maintain continuity of essential UK Armed Forces parachute equipment packing services within the UK.” This requirement was initially competed under Contract Notice reference 2023/S 000-030988.
However, the notice explains that “The Invitation to Negotiate for the provision of UK services was cancelled on 11th September 2024 via publication of a Corrigendum Notice on the Find a Tender Service [Notice reference: 2024/S 000-029148] due to an absence of sufficient tenderers to ensure a genuine competition.”
As a consequence, it has been determined that, “as a result of a failed competition to recompete the UK requirement, the UK MOD will directly award a new single-source contract for continuation of UK parachute packing service provision to IrvinGQ Limited under Regulation 16(1)(a)(i) (the Negotiated Procedure Without Prior Publication of a Contract Notice) of DSPCR 2011 for a maximum duration of five (5) years.”
The notice further states, “The maximum expected value of the new contract, including all options, is twenty-six million pounds (£26M).” It adds that “The Contract will be a Qualifying Defence Contract subject to the provisions of the Defence Reform Act 2014 and the Single Source Contract Regulations 2014, as amended.” The expected date of contract award is set for Q4 2025.
This development comes as the MOD seeks to ensure the uninterrupted provision of critical parachute packing services for the UK Armed Forces, following the cancellation of the previous competitive process due to insufficient tenderers.
This is one thing that should never be left to the lowest bidder! Your life in their hands.
Another thing that makes no sense to outsource. It’s a essential activity and one that is done regularly and so expertise could be maintained internally.
The RAF packers could ram a PX4 or an LLP in the pack while tying their shoe laces, eating a pukka pie and txting their missus! Never many issues regarding opening, albeit a few slow openers but never a full failure that I am aware off 👍
I think MAB Delivery Sqn is still in house, thank God.
I’m against all this privatisation.
MDS use the same AFE as everyone else within the Air Delivery sphere, so they do not have a different process for packing everything is done by PES/PEF
I put my life in the hands of the RAF Hullavington crew 11 times in one day and never gave it a second thought. Countless other times in Norway,Sardinia,Canada,US , Middle East as well as UK, both land and water jumps. Not sure that piece of mind would be there with a private company in pursuit of profit. You can’t put a price on safety.
Perhaps give the cabinet the opportunity to throw themselves out of a C17 trusting that profit does not trump safety. I can hear the excuses now.