UK restarts frigate competition - but will anyone take part?

By: Andrew Chuter

LONDON - Britain's Ministry of Defence is restarting its contest to build five general purpose frigates for the Royal Navy after it terminated the original competition due to insufficient interest from industry.

The Defence Equipment & Support organisation, the MoD's procurement arm, has issued a “prior information notice” informing potential bidders it is moving forward with the Type 31e program, and plans a short period of market engagement with companies or consortia that have expressed interest starting on Aug 20.

“We have relaunched discussions with industry for our new Type 31e fleet, and this week issued a Prior Information Notice to ensure we do not lose any momentum. We remain committed to a cutting-edge Royal Navy fleet of at least 19 frigates and destroyers, and the first batch of five new Type 31e ships will bolster our modern Navy,” said an MoD spokesperson.

“The purpose of the market engagement is for the Authority [DE&S] to share key elements of the new procurement, including technical and commercial elements. The Authority intends to use the feedback from the market engagement to inform the further shaping of its requirements and commercial construct,” said the DE&S in its announcement it was relaunching the competition.

DE&S said suppliers should “only respond if they are in a position to undertake the full Type 31e programme, meeting its full requirement including a £1.25billion cost and building the Type 31e in a UK shipyard.”

The Type 31e is a key part of the government's 2017 national shipbuilding strategy which in part seeks to open up the sector to local competition, rather than contract via a non-competitive single source contract with U.K. giant BAE Systems, the world's third largest defense company according to the Defense News Top 100 list.

The fast track schedule for the Type 31e calls for the initial vessel to be in service by 2023, replacing the first of 13 Type 23 class frigates due to be retired by the Royal Navy in the period up to the middle of the 2030's. The final Type 31e -- the e stands for export -- is due to be delivered in 2028.

Eight of the Type 23's will be replaced by anti-submarine warfare Type 26's. The remainder of the Type 23's will be replaced by the Type 31e.

DE&S and industry are up against a time crunch on getting the first Type 31e into service, one which some executives here see as daunting, if not unachieveable, thanks to the need to restart the competition.

But despite the delay in getting to the competitive design phase contract announcements, DE&S says it remains committed to the 2023 service date.

“A new streamlined procedure will present an opportunity to save time in the overall program. We will release more information about our plans when we have completed the market engagement - which we plan to start from Aug 20,” said a second MoD spokesperson.

Full Article: https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/08/17/uk-restarts-frigate-competition-but-will-anyone-take-part/