Defence Fire and Rescue Project (DFRP) independent review and lessons learned report
This review identifies the factors which led to the DFRP procurement process being open to challenge and makes recommendations on lessons to be learned.
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In July 2018 a decision to award a contract to provide Defence Fire and Rescue Services to Capita Plc was challenged in legal proceedings by the second bidder, Serco Group Plc. This automatically suspended the award of the contract. After lifting of that suspension, on 18 July 2019 MOD announced that it had completed arrangements to award the contract to Capita and reached an out of court settlement with Serco.
As a result of the challenge to the procurement, in June 2019 the Permanent Secretary of MOD asked Tony Poulter to lead a small team to carry out an independent review to establish the lessons that should be learned. Tony Poulter is a non-executive director at the Department for Transport and other organisations. Other team members came from the Cabinet Office and the Government Legal Department. They were supported by a MOD civil servant.
The review found no evidence of bias in the treatment of the 2 bidders, and concludes that the evaluation methodology was fit for purpose. However, it highlights a number of deficiencies in the conduct and recording of the evaluation that made the procurement open to challenge, and makes recommendations to address them. Despite these issues it concludes it unlikely that a more robust process would have led to a different outcome from the competition.