Quarterly qualifying defence contract statistics: Q3 2020/21
The Single Source Regulations Office has released its latest quarterly publication on key statistics relating to qualifying defence contracts (QDCs) and qualifying sub-contracts (QSCs).
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This bulletin is part of a regular published series of statistical reports, containing analysis of key QDC/QSC information. Analysis of all contracts that became a QDC/QSC between 1 April 2015 and 31 December 2020 is included.
The SSRO was notified of 351 contracts that became QDCs/QSCs by 31 December 2020. Contractors have one month after the date the contract becomes a QDC/QSC to submit reports, and as of 31 January 2021 the SSRO had received contract reports for 340 contracts that became QDCs/QSCs between 1 April 2015 and 31 December 2020. This analysis is based on these 340 contracts, which comprised 292 QDCs and 48 QSCs.
The estimated total contract price of all 340 QDCs/QSCs was £48.2 billion. The average reported estimated contract profit rate across all QDCs/QSCs was 9.41 per cent. In the first nine months of 2020/21, the SSRO has received contract reports for 48 new QDCs/QSCs, with an estimated total contract price of £3,989 million.
The analysis reflects the most recently reported contract data. All data is taken from reports submitted by the contractor for each QDC/QSC as indicated in the bulletin. The data may not reflect values at contract completion.
Following discussions with stakeholders, the SSRO would like to make users aware of a number of new statistics, along with supporting explanations, being introduced within the Annual Qualifying Defence Contract Statistics: 2020/21 bulletin due to be published in June 2021. The majority of these will provide further aggregated information on completed contracts:
- Overall estimated cost and profit at the latest time of agreement, and actual and forecast cost and profit for completed QDCs/QSCs.
- Number of completed QDCs/QSCs by bands of variance between the estimated and actual and forecast allowable costs, profit and overall contract price.
- Average contract profit rates at the latest time of agreement, and actual and forecast contract profit rates for completed QDCS/QSCs.
Additionally, a new statistic will be introduced into the profit section, showing the range of estimated cost risk adjustment values as a percentage of the baseline profit rate, by primary pricing method. The methodology used in some of the subcontract analysis will also change, including reporting on the total price of all subcontracts over £1 million following the introduction of new data collected, and introducing the total price of subcontracts attributable to QDCs following a review of data quality.
The publication schedule for the next four quarterly bulletins is as follows:
| Quarterly bulletin | Date Published |
|---|---|
| Q4 2020/21 | 16 June 2021 – Annual statistics |
| Q1 2021/22 | August 2021 |
| Q2 2021/22 | November 2021 |
| Q3 2021/22 | February 2022 |