21 September 2018 | Herpreet Kaur Grewal
The Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) - the estates arm of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) - is searching for suppliers to tender for £2.9 billion worth of contracts under a new CCS FM framework.
<The Future Defence Infrastructure Services (FDIS) contracts will provide FM services across its UK estate, replacing existing arrangements when they come to an end.
The contracts are being procured as part of the Crown Commercial Service's (CCS) Workplace Services Facilities Management Marketplace framework. This is a new way of working for the DIO, enabling access to a more diverse supplier base while improving value for money for the taxpayer by leveraging government buying power.
This phase of the FDIS programme will procure new hard FM arrangements for four Regional Prime contracts and five contracts that will replace the current National Housing Prime. The contracts have a collective value of £2.9 billion, excluding additional works. A later stage of the process will procure a National Training Management contract to replace the current National Training Estate Prime.
Jacqui Rock, DIO commercial director, said: "DIO is not only one of the largest providers of housing in the UK, with a stock of nearly 50,000 homes, it is also responsible for managing land and buildings across hundreds of diverse MoD sites.
"We are pleased to be working with CCS to procure these contracts. We want to make DIO easier to do business with, and adopting this route to market is one of the ways that we hope to achieve this, while enabling us access to a wider, more diverse and increasingly resilient supply base."
Sam Ulyatt, the CCS strategic category director - buildings, said: "This procurement is a part of the FM Marketplace, which is changing the way in which central government and the wider public sector procure their FM deals, delivering great value for the taxpayer."
The initial phase of the procurement process will see suppliers qualifying on to each of the lots in the framework, enabling them to participate in subsequent call-off competitions. The award of places to suppliers on each of the framework lots should be completed by the end of next February, with call-off competitions starting soon afterwards.
Each DIO call-off contract will be seven years long, with options to extend up to a further three years, subject to satisfactory performance and other considerations.
An advertisement inviting bids has been released in the Official Journal of the European Union - it can be accessed through the Crown Commercial Services website.