Discussion

The target application for the MISMA contract does not envisage subcontractors taking a leading and high risk role in the transformation activity.  In fact, it is further assumed that the transformation process itself is not high risk (by which we mean that delivery of the transformed services does not require the successful implementation of very complex and/or novel and/or bespoke solutions. The corollary of this is that under these typical conditions, the Authority can rely on a simple contractual relationship where the Contractor is ultimately responsible for performance and can be left to select and organise subcontracts as it best sees fit without Authority intervention. To this end, the considerable majority of the Supply Chain Rights in the Model Agreement (which in themselves were only intended to be fully included in a contract in rare and specific circumstances) are not deemed necessary.

Only where the transformation is high risk/business critical and significantly dependent on subcontractor performance should the Authority consider possible variants.

Provisions to consider

Provision and reference

Considerations

Supply Chain Rights

Reference: Model Agreement Clause 23

Users should read Section 1 of "A negotiating guide for the public sector", published by OGC in March 2010 with support from Partnerships UK and Intellect.