3.9 Contracts should be owned by someone able to represent the end user. This person will not normally be within the commercial function. That person then needs to be supported by a multidisciplinary team of commercial, financial, legal and policy professionals. The commercial specialists should support them on how to use commercial influence to manage the contract, improve the service and reduce costs.
3.10 There is a tension between creating teams that integrate commercial staff to provide consistent support through the life of contracts, and accessing specialist support at key stages of the life cycle. Departments are going about this in different ways:
• Ministry of Justice
The Ministry will create a single team to manage a contract over its life. The team will have an operational contract manager, a commercial contract manager, and other disciplines will support it, such as performance analysts, finance, legal and human resources.
• Home Office
The Home Office has reorganised its centralised commercial capability to develop expert centres for different stages in the contract life cycle. It will allocate a single commercial professional to give end-to-end support to the operational contract manager. As the contract progresses, the commercial partner will report to and be advised by senior commercial staff in different centres of expertise.
• Department for Work & Pensions
The DWP will manage different categories of contracts together. It is centralising its commercial staff under several senior category leads in areas such as ICT, welfare to work and health assessments. Category leads will oversee end-to-end commercial support through the full service life cycle.