UK SAR privatisation in disarray

Maritime Journal - 

The British Government’s controversial privatisation of the country’s search and rescue helicopter service fell into disarray this week when irregularities in the bidding process surfaced.

The £6bn sell-off of the search and rescue helicopter service was halted when the successful bidder admitted to having been given access to ‘commercially sensitive information’ by a Whitehall insider.

In a Commons statement, transport secretary Phillip Hammond said the preferred bidder, private consortium Soteria, had voluntarily come forward to tell of irregularities in the activities of its bid team.

The Minister said, ‘The irregularities included access by one of the consortium members, CHC Helicopters, to commercially sensitive information regarding the joint Ministry of Defence – Department for Transport project team’s evaluations of industry bids and evidence that a former member of that project team had assisted the consortium in its bid preparation, contrary to explicit assurances given to the project team.’

‘Ministry of Defence police are investigating how the commercially sensitive information came to be in the possession of the bidder’, he added.

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