Search and Rescue privatisation suspended

Just as Prestwick’s HMS Gannet is announced as the 2010 busiest Search and Rescue (SAR) unit of the eight such units in the UK – the UK Government’s privatisation of the Search and Rescue service has been suspended. (HMS Gannet rescued 324 people in a total of 379 shouts.)

Ministry of Defence Police are investigating alleged irregularities in the bidding system, with the Soteria Consortium, named in February 2010 as the preferred bidder, said to have been given potentially helpful and commercially sensitive information by a former military officer.

It is alleged that this officer, a former member of the joint Ministry of Defence/Department for Transport integrated project team (IPT) had provided such information while the Soteria bid was in preparation.

Phillip Hammond, Secretary of State for Transport says: ‘The government has sufficient information to enable it to conclude that the irregularities that have been identified were such that that it would not be appropriate to proceed with either the preferred bid or with the current procurement process’.

He also says that the government is considering: ‘… options to maintain continuity of search and rescue helicopter cover until new longer-term arrangements can be put in place’.

RBS left the Soteria Consortium in December 2010, allegedly because of concerns about irregularities,

The remaining members of Soteria are Thales (electronic systems) and CHC (helicopters)/ CHC are currently involved in the SAR service by providing a fleet of S-92 and AW139 helicopters to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), which, with the RAF, jointly provides the UK’s SAR coverage.

The current UK government, the coalition of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, had put the SAR privatisation scheme on hold in June 2010, after coming to power in the General Election of Spring 2010.

An announcement on the project, expected in December 2010, is said to have been delayed because of the withdrawal of RBS from Soteria.

The photograph above is of a CHC Sikorsky S-92 at Kristiansund Airport in Norway, by copyright holder Christian Sager and reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.