Building on the closer economic ties enabled by the UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement (FTA), the UK in Australia network is issuing a call for bids for planning and executing a project to increase supply chain resilience collaboration between the UK and Australia, and potentially third countries, as well as businesses in critical sectors.
Background
Following the Covid-19 pandemic and ongoing supply chain shortages, countries and businesses are increasingly aware of the risks posed to critical supply chains by external events, be they natural disasters, geopolitical events, or other disruptions.
The UK-Australia FTA was signed in December 2021 and will be critical to strengthening the UK-Australia bilateral relationship. In the Innovation Chapter, both countries commit to engage on "value chain matters, including supply chain resilience". Both the UK and Australia have dedicated teams looking at supply chain vulnerabilities, and are engaged in a joint supply chain resilience capability-building initiative to engage interested third countries to develop and improve public sector approaches to managing critical supply chain risks.
Scope of Work
Building on this joint initiative, we are looking to fund a project that will demonstrate how the UK, in collaboration with industry and other governments and organisations in the Indo-Pacific, can improve the resilience of supply chains in critical sectors (which could include but is not limited to semiconductors, telecoms, critical minerals in line with the recently-published Critical Minerals Strategy, or medical goods).
Examples of potential projects
- Work to identify alternative sources of supply for critical goods, and create a shared list of producers to improve business awareness of diversification options, taking advantage of FTA tariff reductions for goods from the UK where possible.
- Proposals for potential alternative sources of supply for critical goods or their precursors in third countries, and workshops to engage key stakeholders across government and industry on how we might incentivise these sources of supply.
- Survey of businesses in critical sectors on key perceived supply chain risks, mitigations they are currently taking, and what role they want to see for government in mitigating these risks.
- Organisation of a stress test exercise on a critical supply chain. This could simulate a series of potential external shocks to the supply chain, and convene key government, industry and academic stakeholders to chart likely impacts and responses. It should result in a series of policy proposals for how UK and Australian government and industry can work to make that supply chain more resilient. The findings could then be presented as part of an additional series of events.
Timelines
| No. | Deliverable | Anticipated activities (not limited to) | Milestone date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Accountable Grant signed with chosen bidder and start the implementation | Proposed work plan for the whole programme | Last week of October 2022 |
| 2 | Programme design report | Detailed list of finalised activities for the programme | 2nd week November 2022 |
| 3 | Delivery of activity | Finalise activity events, dates, locations | November 2022 onwards |
| 4 | Final report of delivery activity and findings | Final report of delivery activity and findings | April 2022 |
Selection Criteria
Bids will be assessed against the following criteria:
- Project design: Feasibility of activities and outputs including the capacity of implementing organisation to deliver outcomes.
- Impact: Supporting identifiable, meaningful activities to enhance impact of the project.
- Scalability: The potential for the project to act as a building block for subsequent FTA implementation activity.
- Viability and risks: Clear engagement/buy-in of key stakeholders. Robust analysis of key risks and a plan of action to manage and mitigate those risks.
- Value for money: Comparable and reasonable costs against the scale of achievable outcomes.
We draw your attention to the below key points:
- Proposals should be between £12,000 - £25,000 ($20,000 - $42,000 AUD).
- All funding must be activity-based (i.e. not for general support staff costs (admin, finance support), office rental etc.).
- We welcome joint bids by more than one implementing organisation where these will result in a more interdisciplinary approach to the project.
