1 This is the second edition of the NAO good practice contract management framework. We are republishing this framework alongside the insights and emerging best practice from our work across government contracts and our framework for auditing commercial relationships.1 This is because we believe, and are told by practitioners, that the framework remains one of the best references for the basic tasks necessary for good contract management.
2 We first published this good practice framework in 2008 with the help of the Office for Government Commerce, then part of HM Treasury. We did so because there was then no widely available contract management good practice standard. We needed a benchmark to assess how departments managed their contracts as part of our 2008 report Central government's management of service contracts,2 and we felt it important to make this available for contract management practitioners to use as well.
3 In the years that followed, some government practitioners started to use the framework to benchmark their own practice. In 2013, following a number of contracting scandals, the Cabinet Office commissioned forensic auditors to assess government's contracts with Serco and G4S against the framework. Since then it has became government's standard reference text for contract management. We often hear about teams using it to improve their contract management, and internal auditors using it to assess how departments manage their contracts. Earlier this year, the Crown Commercial Service published its contract management principles which build on the 2008 framework.3 And we have continued to use the framework across our work.
4 It is encouraging to see the 2008 framework being used across government - we believe that implementation of the tasks set out in the framework help improve contract management.
5 But, this comes with a big caveat. Undoubtedly there have been improvements in contract management over recent years but we have seen that getting the most from contracts relies on more than getting contract management 'right' by following the framework. We have seen contract management not meeting these framework standards directly leading to poor value for money. But we have also seen departments striving to abide by the framework principles and still not achieving what they wanted from the contract. As government contracts for complex things, often in complex ways, we have seen how it needs to think about more than contract management. Contract success and failure depends as much on the soundness of the commercial strategy, the client's capability, and the robustness of the procurement as it does on the management of the contract.
6 This second edition of the framework thus makes no amendments to the framework itself other than to add this note of caution - failure to meet the contract management standards set out in this framework may well lead to problems, but achieving them may not be enough to achieve value for money. The framework focuses on the activities that organisations should consider when planning and delivering contract management and not their overarching approach to commercial and contract management.
7 In our companion document outlining the insights and emerging best practice from our work across government contracts and our framework for auditing commercial relationships, we set out why we believe government needs to work towards higher contracting standards across the full contract lifecycle and provide some insights on what this may look like.
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1 National Audit Office, Commercial and contract management: insights and emerging best practice, November 2016, available at: www.nao.org.uk/report/commercial-and-contract-management-insights-and-emerging-best-practice/
2 Comptroller and Auditor General, Central government's management of service contracts, Session 2008-09, HC 65, National Audit Office, December 2008.
3 Crown Commercial Service, Contract management principles, available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/commercial-capability-contract-management-standards