C18068 Provision of Specialist Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

This procurement seeks to establish a national framework for the provision of specialist PPE clothing and associated services. The framework arrangement will enable call off contracts to be established by Fire and Rescue Services, which includes other blue light services covered under the Civil Contingences Act 2004 level 1 and level 2 responders. This will also include Kent Search and Rescue (Lowlands) or similar voluntary charitable organisations and will cover the geographical area of the UK, Channel Islands and other Crown dependencies to procure items either directly or via mini competition dependent on the lot structure.

The aim of this project is to deliver a framework arrangement for the supply of specialist PPE, which includes clothing and associated services, used for the following environmental scenarios:

— Hazardous material/chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear explosive (CBRNE),

— Urban Search and Rescue (USR),

— Water Rescue – Including water, mud and unstable ground,

— Wild Fires,

— Incident Command,

— Emergency medical response,

— Engineering services,

— Water services,

— Fire investigation,

— Driving school,

— Community engagement,

— Technical fire safety.

Any non-clothing equipment, such as torches, monitors and other ancillary equipment will be considered out of scope.

The framework arrangement will enable call off contracts to be established by Fire and Rescue Services, which includes other blue light services covered under the Civil Contingences Act 2004 level 1 and level 2 responders. This will also include Kent Search and Rescue (Lowlands) or similar voluntary charitable organisations and will cover the geographical area of the UK, Channel Islands and other Crown dependencies.

This prior information notice is to inform the market that Kent and Medway Towns Fire and Rescue Authority is planning to undertake a national procurement process to deliver a framework arrangement that will allow for:

— standardisation of Specialist PPE;

— aggregation of requirements and spend to reduce costs and achieve value for money opportunities - Greater transparency regarding future demand;

— interoperability of kit between Fire and Rescue Services.

This tender opportunity has already been issued to the market in February 2020, however due to the impact of Covid-19, it was decided to cancel the last opportunity which was issued under OJEU notice GB007-KENTFIRE001/2020-000003, along with Due North reference DN384313.

Since this time the authority has taken the opportunity to engage with the market and look at revising the timelines in light of feedback received about further impacts to the supply chain along with the impact of Brexit.

The authority intends to hold supplier engagement sessions prior to commencement of the competition. As this opportunity has been previously published, following a series of engagement sessions, all relevant information shared at the time of the previous engagement sessions shall be made available as part of the information pack for the re-launch of this project. The authority shall hold the first virtual engagement session on the 28 January 2021 and may add a further date in February 2021. For further information, please [email protected]

Full details of the event and all associated communications shall be managed using the Kent Business Portal (www.kentbusinessportal.org.uk/) and any interested suppliers are encouraged to register on the Portal to ensure that they are notified of any updates.