Babcock, BAE bag £170m worth of Royal Navy contracts

The UK defence ministry’s Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) office signed a seven-year contract with Babcock International Group to keep Royal Navy ships supplied with items essential for day-to-day maintenance and operations.

The contract, announced by defence minister Harriett Baldwin in Portsmouth on Tuesday, is estimated to be worth around £107 million over the next seven years, during which time it is expected to deliver around a million individual items to all current and future Royal Navy vessels.

Deliveries will include more than 10,000 different types of consumable items – covering everything from fittings and fixtures to pistons and pumps.

“This new contract will provide all the supplies our ships and personnel require to be effective on operations,” Baldwin said. “This also brings the previous contract under one deal, delivering improved efficiencies and highlighting how we are being smarter about support. These efficiencies are ensuring that our £178 million Defence equipment plan is going towards the state-of-the-art kit our armed forces deserve.”

All items being supplied – including electrical cable, straps, small valves, bearings, gaskets, pipes, pistons, pumps, motors and electrical components – are ‘consumable’ in that they are impractical or impossible to repair.

The signature secures seven jobs at Babcock International with additional jobs secured at 11 companies across the wider UK supply chain. The contract is also set to generate savings of around £3 million by bringing together eight older contracts under a new overarching management arrangement.

Companies within the UK supply chain include Liberty Dynamics and Andersalso, based in the West Midlands, Eriks and Edmundson, based in the South West and SPX Clyde Union in Scotland.

BAE’s Sampson Multi-Function Radar contract

Whilst speaking in Portsmouth, the Defence Minister also announced that BAE Systems have been awarded contracts worth £72m to support cutting-edge radar systems on board the Royal Navy’s ships.

Two of the contracts support the Sampson Multi-Function Radar. Operational on board the Type 45 Destroyers, the radar provides surveillance and dedicated tracking in a single system, enabling the ship to defend itself and other ships in its company from attack.

A five-year contract covering technical support was amongst the announcements. That involves on-board maintenance, spares and repairs management at BAE Systems’ Cowes site on the Isle of Wight, supporting 255 jobs. The radar will also have its processing hardware updated as part of the announcements.

BAE Systems has also won the Commander T101 radar support extension project for the next four years. Deployable by land, sea and air, Commander Type 101 radars are in service across UK territories at home and abroad.