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On 11th July, UK Secretary of State for Transport; Philip Hammond told the House of Commons that in light of the decision announced on 8th February not to proceed with the previously planned joint Ministry of Defence/Department for Transport procurement for future search and rescue capability (SAR-H) the Department for Transport would shortly run a competition to procure an interim service. The previous private finance initiative (PFI) tender had to be abandoned due to irregularities in the bidding process, His Government had concluded that in order to ensure the continuity of services a new contract was required for a period of up to five years. Two days later his Department published its invitation to tender for what was described as ‘Gap Search and Rescue Helicopter Service’ able to operate an all-weather SAR Helicopter Service throughout the UK in the maritime environment and with limited overland capability. It must be “responsive, able to search a wide area of interest, locate and recover personnel and stabilise casualties from all risk areas including mountainous terrain and the maritime environment”. The Helicopter Service is currently based at Portland, Lee-on-the-Solent, Sumburgh and Stornoway and currently operates 365 days a year on a 24hr basis (apart from Portland which operates on a 12hr basis (daytime operation). The tender states that “service delivery shall continue from Lee-on-the-Solent and Portland” but “bidders can consider alternative locations for service delivery on the Isle of Lewis and The Shetland Islands. A draft statement of service delivery element of the requirement will be provided by the DfT with the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ)”. Parties are required to tender in one or more lots and the contract will be for six years, with the option to extend a further 12 months. Payment will be triggered once the SAR service enters the operational delivery phase, expected to start after the implementation phase, which could last up to two years. Potential Bidders who have been successfully selected to go forward to the tendering stage will be offered a range of options to tender without prejudice. For the moment they can supply up to a maximum of three bids; a limit of one proposal per option for the following:

•a bid which delivers the service in the north of Scotland, based on the Isle of Lewis and The Shetland Islands - Northern Base Option;

•a bid which delivers the service on the south coast from existing sites at Lee-on-the-Solent and Portland- Southern Base Option;

•a bid which delivers both the Northern and Southern Base Options.

The total estimated value of the North and South options together is between £200 - £235 million (€228.5 - €268.5 million). Interestingly the Department may require an option for the assets under this contract to be transferred to the resulting contract of a further long term SAR competition in due course. These assets would be expected to be transferred at current market value at the time of transfer. The closing date for the receipt of tenders or requests to participate was 28th July. Obviously time is running out to get this contract up and running and already a 12-month extension of the present contract with CHC was urgently invoked to allow more time for a new contract to be put in place. With the present Stornoway and Shetland coastguard search-and-rescue Sikorsky S.92 helicopters due to be permanently moved to the new Irish SAR contract in Ireland the UK risked being left without adequate helicopter cover from 2013. It is not known if or how the investigation into the circumstances that led to the cancellation of that SAR (H) procurement process would affect any of the bidders and the investigation is ongoing. CHC has confirmed that $10 million (€6.96 million) was written off as a result of the unsuccessful SAR H bid, nevertheless it has confirmed it would be bidding on this tender adding “we’re in discussion with the UK government and they’re aware of our intentions to bid”. The Secretary of State for Transport has said that the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy would “continue to provide coverage from their search and rescue bases as at present”, while he considered “the options for the long-term provision of search and rescue helicopter capability”. Work is also under way to identify the optimum procurement options for the long-term provision of search and rescue helicopter capability for the UK. He added “the procurement strategy we adopt for the longer term will seek to ensure that the Ministry of Defence is able to complete its previously announced intention to withdraw its Sea Kings from service in 2016”.