The UK’s Joint Maritime Security Centre (JMSC) is looking to engage with commercial aviation providers to deliver a new aerial surveillance service, aimed at enhancing maritime security across the UK’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
The service, which will replace current arrangements with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and Marine Scotland, is designed to provide real-time surveillance data using both manned and unmanned aircraft equipped with advanced sensor systems.
This new service will contribute to the UK’s maritime domain awareness (MDA) by delivering timely situational information to decision-makers across various government and operational agencies.
The aerial surveillance service will support the Royal Navy’s Maritime Domain Awareness Programme (RN MDAP) by filling gaps in shore-based sensor coverage, which only extends a few tens of miles from the UK coastline. “The data-layer from shore-based systems is limited, hence there are large areas of the UK EEZ that require alternative aerial surveillance to provide data to the COP [Common Operating Picture],” the notice explains. The Common Operating Picture is crucial in offering a complete overview of maritime activities within the UK’s EEZ, allowing for better situational awareness and response.
The new service will require the provider to conduct covert and non-covert aerial sorties across all areas of the UK’s EEZ. These operations are intended to detect and identify vessels, including those that are not broadcasting identification signals. Aircraft sensor fit will include radar and Electro-Optical Infrared (EO/IR) systems, and the surveillance data must be communicated to the JMSC in as close to real-time as possible.
The contract, which is expected to last between three and five years, with an estimated total value of up to £19 million, will require the service provider to deliver high-quality imagery and data around the clock, covering both day and night operations. The procurement process aims to “determine the level of interest, capacity, and capability to meet the requirement,” while also exploring “the most cost-effective way to deliver the requirements, including any alternative or creative solutions,” the notice details.
The new surveillance system will replace the services provided by Marine Scotland and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. To date, these agencies have supplied aerial surveillance data, but the JMSC is now seeking to engage a commercial provider to ensure sustained, comprehensive coverage. The provider will be required to undertake missions using rotary or fixed-wing manned or unmanned aircraft, with the capacity to conduct surveillance over large swathes of the UK EEZ.
The Home Office has outlined steps for interested suppliers to express their interest in the contract. Suppliers must be registered on the Home Office e-Sourcing Portal by October 4th, 2024, in order to participate in the tender process. Additionally, they will be required to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to access further details and participate in a virtual engagement event expected to take place later in October 2024.
The notice specifies that the procurement route will likely be via the Crown Commercial Service’s Space Enabled and Geospatial Services RM6235 Dynamic Purchasing System, meaning interested suppliers will need to be registered on this system by December 2024, when the tendering process is anticipated to begin.
Just give it to SERCO I’m sure defence of our realm will be safe in their hands. 😂
Hi folks hope all is well.
It all sounds good and all hitec. Wonder if this will stop illegal migrants? Put trust in the hands of private companies, well that will work well then. “To support the Royal Navy ” why not give the budget to them in the first instance?
On a more serious note, couldn’t the data be manipulated by a foreign power; giving wrong data to confuse the authorities and military? After all, firms change hands. And the Home Office will be managing this project, God help us.
Cheers
George
Of course it won’t, it will only help spot their arrival.
For only 19 million pounds over 5 years it will be pretty small aircraft and probably second hand. The Defenders recently disposed of were probably in the right ball park for the job but someone decided to get rid of them. Perhaps prematurely!
Illegal immigrants probably use less than 0.1% of the EEZ so they won’t get much coverage. As I see it it is filling the gap which can’t be covered by P8 training and routine operational flights. 19 million over five years is cheap compared to a couple of extra P8 which could do the same job.
Britain is paying £20m for the Peregrine drone on HMS Lancaster for two years with no guarantee of coverage. Contrast that with £19m to provide sustained round-the-clock, comprehensive aerial coverage of 300,000 sq mi, for three to five years, providing near real-time high quality imagery. And who is to provide all the sensors and data links on multiple platforms? Cheap? £19m would be a steal.
At that price it has to be reactive and neither sustained nor comprehensive.
What a great way to create complexity and more interfaces between organisations that can go wrong and block up information flows…
when it comes to security of the EEZ it should really be a state agency that already exists.
Assume HMCG has no money for this or the expertise?
I would image that between the relevant agencies you would find all the expertise you need ( HMCG, board force, fisheries and RN)..they could cross fertilise whichever agency got primacy on this one. In reality any private provider is literally going to have zero expertise or exposure to monitoring the UK EEZ so will have to learn everything ( including the simple fact of how to take to the other different agencies and how they all work)..they will probably do this by trying to steel away government agency staff. As for funding simply move the contract money into the primary agency to build up the capacity..
Ive had this many times before. You bring in a private sector provider, that has lots of expertise in sounding good, saying the right things to win a contract.but has zero knowledge of the system they are going to be working in and generally their wider knowledge of the job is shallow..
A permanent policing presence; surveillance of our EEZ; the equivalent of Bobbies on the Beat. I approve.
Over the North Sea…https://waronline.org/fora/index.php?attachments/1726611419541-png.294664/
Sounds like another way to take govt assets/skills and offload them to private companies. I’m sure this will be cost effective for the govt.. not.
Agree entirely, BL. So much of our defence support has be3n contracted out, with very underwhelming results. SERCO, Persimmon, the flying training mob at UKMFTS, army recruitment, AirTanker, privatised catering, etc., etc. A heap of money going out the door to pay for either corporate finance, with all the costs of loan interest, directors’ bonuses and max profit taking, or dumbed-down services using pretty low-grade Mac workers to turn a profit.
Gawd knows what the assorted civilians would do in a war situation, are they going to be providing vehicle and weapons maintenance, air support services, catering etc on the battlefields of Germany or Estonia? It is a pretty hopeless short-term fix to save a little money.
It is all Treasury-led, which is too often adopted and followed enthusiastically and slavishly by the civvies and their fleet of accountants at head office.
Would be far better to keep these services in-house. Why are we using the likes of Persimmon for Estate repairs and maintenance, when the Sappers have all the skills to do the job and would take pride in it and do it far better? Why virtually wipe out the Catering Corps, to save a few bob on downgraded culinary offerings and skill levels?
This maritime surveillance role is another of the same. For the price of the contract, we’ll get a very minimalist and patchy service, provided by commercial companies who likely have minimal experience of the task. As said above, the 9 Defenders withdrawn from service would have been ideal for the task, add some drones and we’d be well on top of the EEZ surveillance task.
The MOD is under great pressure from HMT to cut every possible cost and sell off anything that can bring a bit of money in to prop up defence spend, plus the daft, short-termist ‘Reduce to Procure” nonsense, which only a civilian accountant could have come up with.
Surveillance of the EEZ should be given to an RAF squadron to handle. They have the experienced people across fixed wing, rotary and UAV, far moreso than some outsourced company which, next to the RAF, will only be a downward step to beginners trying, probably not too strenuously, to master military arts that we already possess in the armed forces.
Ah, another privatisation of what was a role carried out by the services.
When the RN and RAF ceased to provide SAR, the experienced crews were offered the opportunity to work for Bristow who still provide it now. This is despite the fact that the aircraft have HMCG livery on them. Same highly skilled crews carrying out a highly skilled job.
A group of us were told this several years ago straight from the horses mouth by one of the SAR guys at air rescue base at Lydde.
We can all tell Healey how to fix the recruitment issue. Get rid of SERCO. Get the regiments back into their local recruiting offices. Let those with direct experience of life in the forces tell their stories to potential recruits. Do what they do in the US, fully fund everyone who wants to join the services through university in exchange for a minimum 6-year contract.
With this reform, joining HM Armed Forces would give individuals a meaningful career path and show that intelligence and training offer real growth prospects. Offer those who do not have a degree, the chance of a fully funded degree, provided they serve a minimum period of 6 years following graduation. This allows those who join infantry battalions the opportunity of carving out promotion opportunities to people who thought joining up is better than living at home on the dole. At the same time, it will give people from working-class backgrounds the opportunity to climb out of the societal rut they have been born into and would normally stay in. Better educated troops mean better Armed Forces and a better country.
Paying their university fees while expensive would open the Armed Forces up to a talent pool they currently do not fish in.