Contract Award under Reg 32 (c) for Laptops

The Covid-19 outbreak has been declared a Major Incident by the University's Incident Management Team and immediate action is needed to facilitate additional home working for staff and remote tuition to students. Due to the critical nature of the current Covid-19 outbreak, the University is taking measures to safeguard its students and staff. As part of the Incident Management and Business Continuity processes, remote working is being implemented across the workforce. To enable this the University immediately requires more laptops, which are in short supply across the supply market due to both a surge in demand and pre-existing production problems at major OEMs. Laptops are needed for both staff (to enable remote working for an extended period) and students (some students do not have appropriate devices given that all teaching is now being delivered online). For reasons of extreme urgency, brought about by the unforeseen events of the Covid-19 outbreak, the University had limited time to secure the provision of an additional 100 laptops on a first come first serve basis. The urgent time limits did not allow for any competitive procedure (open, restricted, RFQ etc.). If the University does not act immediately the devices will be sold to other clients given the huge national surge in demand for home working. The University's current contracted supplier is also unable to fulfill this orders in a timely manner.