3.20 All business relationships can benefit from regular review to consider ways in which the relationship can be improved. Authorities and contractors should, therefore, reassess their relationships on a regular basis. This will be especially useful where adversarial attitudes have developed. But such reviews are also valuable where the relationship is good: 75 per cent of contractors who currently view their relationship with the authority as good or very good considered their relationship could still be improved. In a good relationship neither side should object to suggestions for improvement: for example, that staff should be provided with more training. Authorities should also regularly review procedures for monitoring the contractor's performance.
3.21 Authorities need to monitor the appropriateness of contractual incentives and performance indicators, especially where the services required have changed, to ensure they are measuring what the authority actually wants. Authorities should also ensure that performance indicators and associated deductions do not unintentionally provide incentives for undesirable outcomes or become unreasonably punitive.