The Ministry of Defence intends to award a contract worth approximately GBP 15 million to Serco for continued engineering support and airfield services at Royal Naval Air Stations Yeovilton and Culdrose, the UK Defence Journal understands.
The notice, published on 2 April, sets out the MoD’s intention to award the deal directly to Serco without competition under Section 41 of the Procurement Act 2023. The contract would cover a period of one year with the option to extend for a further year.
The MoD justified the direct award on the grounds that changing supplier would result in services that are “different from, or incompatible with, the existing services.” The notice stated that an alternative provider would lack Serco’s “deeply embedded operational expertise and established relationships at Yeovilton and Culdrose” as well as its “suitably trained and experienced staff.”
The department set out a detailed case for why switching contractors would cause disproportionate difficulties. Among the risks cited were “unacceptable risks to performance and safety resulting from the need to rebuild critical trust and operational knowledge,” the need to invest additional resources in retraining staff and modifying systems, and “a risk to the continued readiness and support to MCT aircraft, which is critical to national defence.”
The MoD also warned that a change in supplier could lead to disruption to ground support and equipment provision at RNAS Yeovilton, increased lead times in returning airframes to flying operations at RNAS Culdrose, and a reduction in available aircraft in the forward fleet.
The direct award justification falls under paragraph 7 of Schedule 5 of the Procurement Act, which permits contracts to be awarded without competition where the existing supplier’s services cannot be replicated without incompatibility or disproportionate technical difficulty. Direct awards of this nature are not unusual in defence, particularly for specialist support services at operational military sites where continuity and institutional knowledge are considered essential to maintaining safety and readiness.
Will that only be Monday-Friday, 0900 – 1700 too ???
Yep: treble time and days owed. You think I’m joking.
So Serco now runs the Blue Ensign fleet, Armed forces recruitment and the service agreements with RNAS Culdrose and Yeovilton, that combined with the 80% shear of the waist collection around the UK Serco must have some good contacts in the government and Civil Service.
I just wonder how many millions of UK tax payers £s given to Serco from the defence budget ends up in the 401K’s of American people as the vast majority of Serco stock is owned by American companies like Black Rock, Vanguard and Bank of America.
But Serco is not alone the same companies also have a large number of shears in Landmark who run the training establishments, Janes who have a good foot hold in the MoD
But it dose not end there as Serco’s purchase of a large number of tugs which hit the headline not so long ago from Damen with both companies owned by the same shear holders and yet it seems that this type of deal dose not raise an eyebrow in Parliment or the halls of the Civil Service, maybe the same people who should be raising their eyebrows already have stock in the same companies (just an idea).
My question is why dose the vast majority of the profits made by these companies end up in America and is not being reinvested in the UK
“the vast majority of Serco stock is owned by American companies”
No chance that is true. UK investors are by far the largest owners of UK shares. Besides which, even if Blackrock were the largest shareholder in Serco, you’ll find that is through iShares tracker funds and ETFs. What might appear on the shareholder register as one giant owner is in fact millions of individuals. Blackrock and the like aren’t sitting on some great mountain of shares like Smaug
And Bank of America, Vanguard, Amentum all heavy hitters in the American stock market as well as Black Rock between them they own a good percentage of not just Serco but Landmark and Damen. The Bank of America also has a large interest in Janes.
With the privatization of the UK’s armed forces we have allowed private companies to take large profits at the expense of the UK tax payer and to the detriment of the armed forces.
just under 50% of Serco shareholders are classed as in the UK, TBF that doest included Blackrock UK
So that implies just over 50% shareholders are overseas, if we look at defence contractors in the USA all of there proffits have to stay in the US along with investment in the defence infrastucture.
May I suggest that all UK defence contractors have to do the same as companies like BAE who have a lot of defence contracts in the US but cannot use the proffits made in the US out side of the US.
Or better still get rid of companies like Serco and Landmark who only see the UK defence budget as a get rich quick scam with little to no interest in the defence of the UK.
Why can’t we provide our own engineering support, for fucking hells.
Not enough people, too much skill-fade, no one staying much longer than 5-7 years, deployment fatigue due to lack of second-line billets, I could go on,,,,,,,,
All stemming from ‘Front-Line-First’ initiative started in the early 90’s, I remember the address being given in the Senior Rate’s Mess at VL by COMAW (We had amphibious capability then) at the time, Sir Alan West. De-Enrichment was another term used at the time to chop Service billets and replace with industry. To be fair, most of the SERCO guys are Ex Service and good at what they do (Particularly at weekends). The demographic however, is not a youthful one and there will be a black hole of retirees on the horizon I fear.
That logic doesn’t add up though. If the skills weren’t there, where is serco getting them. I suspect it’s just cheaper to outsource as then you don’t have to give them access to civil service pension scheme. As most people are not very financially literate, they don’t consider the pension value when comparing compensation packages, which to be fair is difficult with a final salary scheme that is offered to the public service.
Hi Steve, meant skill-fade in the Service, as people don’t stay long and go to the likes of SERCO? They (SERCO) also undertake most of the deep maintenance, so when the guys deploy, they rarely have the skill sets/experience they require for major unserviceabilitys. That comes with longer deployments, where they have to learn quickly, and the cycle begins,,,,,,,,,,,
Yep I know, but since those people are just getting training from working on UK mod gear, because there isn’t much of a civilian market for military gear repairs, those skills could be maintained in the MOD if there is a desire. Private sector only works when there is competition. It’s not like serco have access to a magic pool of skilled workers that the MOD doesn’t have access to or training courses that the MOD couldn’t develop.
For every £1 Serco get, they spend 10p and cream off the rest.
Why and how does this dubious company get so many government contracts?
Something really stinks.
I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination however, it’s not just Serco, it’s the whole business of slashing skills in the armed forces, and sub-contracting work out. It started decades ago with ex-forces personnel lobbying MP’s and anyone who might listen, that they could do a better job, as they had a good working knowledge as to how the forces work/operate.
This led to allsorts of ‘side hussle’s, which then got bigger and bigger, eventually leading to maintenance taken away from the military, and ending up in the laps of conglomerates like bae etc and etc.
So no more apprenticeships as fitters, mechanics blah blah. The main reason Britain has no military… Conglomerates and multi nationals are paid so much for kit, equipment, servicing, food, catering… to be honest, it would be far far cheaper to hire mercenaries, that to maintain a toothless equipment-less armed forces.
The until recently Ceo of serco is grandson of Churchill, nephew of a one time defence secretary and brother of one time Conservative mp. Does that help?