Ireland – Technical analysis or consultancy services – Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency (VEAT) Notice for Award of Contract to LGC Standards Proficiency Testing for the provision of Proficiency Testing Service to Central Laboratory DCC for Drinking Water and Other relevant matrices for Chemical and Biological parameters as required under ISO 17025.

Dublin City Council gives notice to invoke Article 32.2 (b) (ii) for a derogation from public procurement whereby the works, supplies or services can be provided only by a particular economic operator as competition is absent for technical reasons. Dublin City Council intends to award a contract to LGC Standards Proficiency Testing. The maximum value of of this contract is €175,000 ex VAT. The central Laboratory is required to ensure the validity of the results it produces for its customers (including Uisce Eireann, other local authorities and the EPA) under its ISO 17025 accreditation. A major element of this is “Proficiency Testing” whereby “unknown (to the lab)” samples are sent to numerous labs throughout Europe for analysis. Each lab reports the results back to LGC within an agreed timeframe and LGC then collate all the results and carry out statistical analysis on the data to produce “Z scores” which indicate how close each lab is to the true value of the sample. Samples which are outside the required specifications are flagged by LGC and their results must be investigated by the relevant lab. LGC allows access to these reports via its online portal and trends along with lab/analyst performances can be evaluated over any period of time using LGC’s own software. These reports form part of each Central Lab section’s 5 year Proficiency Testing Plan. LGC provide the widest range of matrices and parameters available in Europe and offer 20 rounds of samples per year, on an annual contract basis, which is what we are procuring here. The service from LGC will include the preparation and transport of approximately 18 different sample groups dispatched as per their annual schedule (20 rounds over the course of the calendar year) and the collating of all data and production of analytical reports for each parameter in each round. The 2025 Central Lab schedule can be seen in the last page of this document. It is planned that this contract will be awarded to LGC for a period of 5 years from 2025 with an option to renew for a further two years from 2030.