1. The National Audit Office1 has estimated that better contract management could generate savings of between £160 million and £290 million a year across the organisations surveyed through reduced contract expenditure. As well as financial savings, better contract management could bring improvements in the quantity and/or quality of services, the avoidance of service failure, and better management of risk.
2. Whilst the Contract Management focuses on the management of the contract once signed, the success of contract management activities are strongly determined by the plans and activities during tendering/contract award phase, in terms of both 'hard' outputs, such as the contract specification and contract terms and conditions, and, the type of relationship between customer and supplier. In this way, the tendering/contract award phase and the contract management phase should be seen as a continuum rather than distinct phases, with the succes of contract management planned for from the start of the procurement process.
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1 Central government's management of service contracts, December 2008 (HC 65, Session 2008-09)