Procurement of Market Research Services

1.1. In September 2015 the Maritime Growth Study was published by Her Majesty's Government. Within this study were a number of recommendations for the MCA to maintain its status as one of the world's leading maritime authorities. Alongside the Maritime Growth Study, the MCA was initiating a programme to transform the way it carried out its surveys and inspections. One of the recommendations from the Maritime Growth Study, was for the MCA to implement its Survey and Inspection Transformation Programme (S&ITP) to create a more highly skilled, flexible and better rewarded surveyor workforce and improve MCA systems in order to better support industry customers while driving high standards.

1.2. The Survey and Inspection Transformation Programme has delivered significant changes to its organisation and is now looking to monitor the service it provides through an electronic survey and a telephone survey. Until now, in terms of survey and inspection and oral exam activity, the MCA has not measured the level of customer service it delivers. In order to measure this we need to be able to get feedback from our customer base.

1.3. The electronic (online survey) is currently being administered in-house and does not form part of this procurement exercise. However, we believe that there are clusters of our customer base that prefer not to conduct their business online, and it is therefore unlikely that they will respond to online feedback surveys.