713289450-Procurement of Drill Rounds and Gauges

CPV: Purchase · Weapons, ammunition and associated parts

Procedure method

Negotiated with publication of a contract notice

Legal basis

CELEX · 32009L0081 Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011 (Directive 2009/81/EC)

Procurement category

Goods

Notice status

Awarded

Procurement threshold

Unspecified in notice

Regulatory regime

Standard

Commercial structure

Stand-alone contract (no framework)

Competition type

Competitive procedure

GPA / WTO covered

Unspecified in notice

Recurring procurement

Unspecified in notice

First published

15 Nov 2024, 14:15 GMT

Last source update

15 May 2025, 16:46 BST

Authority reference

713289450

FTS notice number

2025/S 000-021933

Classification (CPV)

PurchaseWeapons, ammunition and associated parts

Delivery area

UK

Official registry OCID

ocds-h6vhtk-04b6e8 Find a Tender

Why no open competition

The procurement falls outside the scope of application of the directive

Published justification

The Defence Equipment & Support Land Equipment Ajax Portfolio Team, part of the UK Ministry of Defence (the Authority), intends to award a single source contract for a total of 3 years to Lockheed Martin United Kingdom (LMUK) for the purchase of 2700Drill Rounds for Ajax Vehicles & Training Systems.

In accordance with regulation 4 of The Defence and Security Public Contracts (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (SI 2019/697) this procurement falls to be regulated under the provisions of the Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011 as amended (in particular by SI 2019/697 and SI 2020/1450). Prior publication of a contract notice in the Official Journal of the European Union is no longer appropriate.

It is considered that the award of the contract without prior publication of a contract notice in the UK e-notification service (as required by the relevant legislation) is lawful in accordance with regulation 16(1)(a)(ii) of the DSPCR 2011 for Technical Reasons. This is for the following reasons.

LMUK have previously provided Drill Rounds to the Authority’s Ajax Programme. The current LMUK Drill Rounds have been designed, tested and qualified to work in line with the required Ajax specification. Previous testing on alternative Drill Rounds has been conducted and various options have been deemed non-compliant to the Ajax specification. There are no other Drill Rounds available from alternative suppliers in the market that meet the Authority’s requirements and are qualified for use.

The requirement for Drill Rounds is on the Ajax Critical Path and is essential to the programme. Now that additional Ajax vehicles and Training Systems are in service the need for compliant Drill Rounds is critical. To adhere to requirements set out by the Authority’s Future Soldier Integrated Review, Drill Rounds must be procured to ensure Ajax Vehicles & Training Systems are supported to maintain the schedule. The current LMUK Drill Rounds will allow the Authority to maintain the current specification reducing technical and operational risk, risk to the programme timeline and damage to equipment. It would also prevent additional delays and impacts on essential Ajax training requirements.

Delays have already caused significant impacts to the Ajax programme historically. To design, test and qualify a new Drill Round now, even if this was possible, will introduce further delays to the Ajax programme which will not be tolerable. Consequently, even if an alternative supplier had the technical capability to produce a Drill Round suitable for use with the Ajax Vehicles & Training Systems and then have it successfully qualified for use, this would cause unacceptable and disproportionate time and cost impacts on the Ajax programme.

• LMUKAwarded supplier Amptill, UK
• Lockheed Martin Ampthill UK LtdAwarded supplier Ampthill, MK45 2HD

No document links were published on the notice.