The provision of freight services for the supply of personal protective equipment and medical equipment

Contracts

• Contract for the provision of freight services for the supply of personal protective equipment and medical equipment · Uniserve Ltd

  Signed

  30 Mar 2020

  Value

  £572,890,310

  Period

  30 Mar 2020 – 31 Dec 2021

  Status

  active

  • Change DHSC has agreed to extend the existing agreement by an additional 9 months to now expire on 31.12 2021, under Regulation 72(1)(b) of the Public Contracts Regulation 2015.Regulation 72(1)(b) states: contracts may be modified without a new procurement procedure for additional works, services or suppliers by the original contract that have become necessary and were not included in the initial procurement, where a change of contractor(i) cannot be made for economic or technical reasons such as requirements of interchangeability or interoperability with existing equipment, services or installations procured under the initial procurement, [and](ii) would cause significant inconvenience or substantial duplication of costs for the contracting authority,provided that any increase in price does not exceed 50% of the value of the original contract.(a) The duration and severity of the COVID 19 pandemic has prompted high levels of demand for various international freight and storage requirements. At this time high volumes of goods are in transit, many in containers awaiting palletisation and transportation to final warehousing storage. The extension of the existing agreement to 31.12.2021 has become necessary to ensure that all of the containers currently in transit are unloaded and returned to their owners, and to ensure that the goods once unloaded are transported to warehousing for longer term storage.(b) Uniserve has in place arrangements with a number of third parties to facilitate these Services under bookings entered in to by it with third parties within the transport logistics chain. Interchangeability with existing services is not possible for practical reasons and to attempt to do so would cause significant inconvenience and substantial duplication in costs for DHSC. Without the extension DHSC will be forced to transfer responsibility for goods in transit including containers from Uniserve on expiry of the contract.(c) DHSC has currently awarded contracts for International Freight and Logistics services under an advertised competitive tender procedure (open procedure) (Contract Notice reference 2020/S 247-615613), which have not yet been fully mobilised. The extension to the existing agreement with Uniserve will preserve continuity of services whilst newly awarded tendered contracts are fully mobilised.(d) the value of the modification is £99,500,000, which is less than 50 % of the original contract value.Note that the modification does not alter the overall nature of the Uniserve agreement. The Services available to the Authority will remain consistent with that upon contract extension., Need for additional works, services or supplies by the original contractor/concessionaire: DHSC awarded a contract on 30 March 2020 to Uniserve Limited for the provision of freight services for the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical equipment in response to COVID-19 (Contract Award Notice reference 2020/S 232-573975). DHSC is extending the contract relying on Regulation 72(1)(b) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 to:a) Ensure continuity of services whilst competed contracts are fully mobilised, and;b) Enable goods in transit to complete their journey to long term warehousing including the unloading and release of PPE storage containers.Given that COVID-19 is a new virus, there was no historic data upon which to base requirements at Contract Award. A failure to extend the agreement would cause significant inconvenience and substantial duplication of costs for DHSC.

Dispute resolution & review bodies

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