Emerging best practice

Put in place roles, responsibilities and processes for monitoring, decision-making, ownership and oversight from early in the contract lifecycle. This includes establishing 'executive champions' who report to organisational committees with oversight of the contractual portfolio. Continuity should be supported by back-up plans that document what staff need to know and specific handover processes. See ensure a shared understanding for more examples.

Develop and use systems that produce electronic invoices, record cost and progress information in a way that is consistent and easy to analyse. This will allow closer management of the contract with less effort required.

Make use of standard and documented processes to manage obligations, carry out procurement processes in a lean and effective way, and deal with changes or any incidents or disputes. Collect and use information to make decisions across contracts, categories and the organisation. See manage your own obligations and properly evaluate bids for more details of processes.

Keep records with information and dates relating to processes, contracts, contract performance, and the pipeline of forthcoming work. These should be available to all those involved with the contract and should feed into the governance systems, including portfolio overviews, detailed above.