Vendor Due Diligence - Technical Readiness Assessment

Clause 6 of Schedule 5 of PA2023 is applicable as the following conditions are met in relation to the public contract:

(a) due to an absence of competition for technical reasons, only a particular supplier can supply the goods, services or works required, and

(b) there are no reasonable alternatives to those goods, services or works.

The selected supplier is deeply embedded in the project, with unparalleled expertise built up over years; are fully onboarded and have undertaken significant preparatory work

The continuity of service across the preparatory and Vendor Due Diligence (VDD) workstreams would enable the current advisors to leverage the significant work done to date by Department for Transport (DfT), National Highways (NH) and their organisations in order to offer a higher quality output, likely in less time, and with less friction – ultimately driving better value for money vs a new/different advisor

Additionally, bringing on new supplier(s) to provide the VDD reports when preparatory work has been undertaken by other advisors will necessitate replication of scope in order for the incoming parties to get comfortable with the current status, duplicating the work already undertaken and billed at this stage and creating the opportunity for protracted and unhelpful divergences in position

While other engineering advisors have internal capabilities to meet the requirements formally, the current advisor group has been significantly specialised by virtue of their experience to date on LTC that they are uniquely qualified to meet the scope from a technical perspective, rendering any broader process ultimately uncompetitive

Indeed, there are strategic benefits to limiting the number of teams and organisations already managing internal conflicts with the project and avoiding ‘saturating’ the market, to ensure that investors, lenders and all relevant parties are able to access the advisors they need quickly and without undue complications as part of a smooth and functional transaction process

If the incumbent advisors are not appointed for this process, they are highly likely to represent a counterparty on the transaction, who could reap the benefits of their significant experience rather than us; there is a strong case for preserving this knowledge internally

The proposed VDD report scopes do not represent new independent scopes which are a departure from the work done to date. Instead, they reflect a repetition of similar preparatory works previously completed and offer the opportunity to leverage this historic work while taking a more detailed look at certain aspects and ensuring third-party reliance can be provided in due course as required by the transaction programme.