Matthew Kellway on Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

With regard to the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS): (a) has a statement of operational requirements been established, (i) if yes, when was this done and what are the criteria that will be used to determine what ships will be built, (ii) if no, when will it be done, (iii) if it will not be done, what criteria will be used to determine what ships will be built; (b) will there be an open competition for contracts associated with the strategy; (c) what is a current breakdown of the $35 billion contract value that was assessed, specifically, what is the value of each individual component included in this assessed value; (d) where will the technology being used to build the ships come from; (e) what components will be included in each ship (i.e., hull, weapons systems, propulsion, etc.); (f) will the ships have all components necessary for deployment, (i) if not, why not and which components will need to be procured at a future date, (ii) if yes, what contracts have been signed that to account for this answer; (g) how will the contracts be awarded, specifying (i) how many ships will be built, (ii) which shipyards will be used for construction, (iii) what will be the dollar value of contracts awarded to each of the shipyards; (h) what are the details of any changes the government has made to the strategy and associated contracts as a result of delays in delivery (for example, in the case of the Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS)) and what are the impacts of the delays in delivery on the overall cost of the project, identifying in particular whether and how delays have impacted the estimated $3.1 billion cost of the AOPS; (i) has there been an evaluation of how many jobs will be created by this strategy, if yes, (i) how many jobs are expected to be created and for what duration, (ii) who conducted this evaluation, (iii) have the job creation projections been independently verified, and, if yes, by whom; (j) for what reasons has the NSPS been in the “definition” phase for over a year; (k) when does the government expect the NSPS will move to the effective project approval and implementation phase; (l) what are the steps of the procurement process that is being used to coordinate the NSPS, including (i) the dates of each step or phase, (ii) for each step or phase where there has been a delay, what are the reasons for the delay and what steps were taken to address the delay, (iii) what delays are expected to occur in future steps or phases of the process?