Building on Chapter 5, this chapter outlines a framework and relevant matters to be considered for developing a contract administration manual.
The contract administration manual is a living document used throughout the life of the project and should reflect the specific contract to be managed and meet the needs of the individual contract director and the contract management team. |
Contract administration is about the contract director and the contract management team working with the private party and relevant government parties to achieve the government's project objectives. Effective and efficient public sector contract administration is essential to the delivery of project and government objectives (including the value for money outcomes agreed at contract execution).
The National PPP guidelines: practitioners' guide3 sets out five key tasks for contract administration throughout the project lifecycle. For completeness, six further tasks have been added for the purposes of this guide to produce the following list of key tasks:
1. Formalise management responsibilities for transition between the project stages.
2. Monitor project delivery.
3. Manage variations.
4. Monitor the service outputs.
5. Maintain the integrity of the contract.
6. Monitor contract performance.
7. Maintain strong working relationships with the project parties and service providers.
8. Resolve project issues and disputes fairly and efficiently.
9. Work with government colleagues to identify potential service delivery and other change events that may impact the project.
10. Ensure that standards of probity, governance and compliance are adhered to.
11. Conduct regular contract and project reviews to ensure continuous improvement.
The processes and tools described in Parts 2 and 3 of this guide will aid the contract director and the contract management team in monitoring contractual and financial issues with a view to identifying emerging risks to the project and government.
The key output is a contract administration manual or similar set of documents. The contract administration manual should, on a rolling basis, list government's project objectives, summarise the project to date and related key decisions, highlight immediate and critical actions to be taken in administering the contract and align the available resources with the most time-critical and materially significant risks at the various stages during the project lifecycle.
______________________________________________________________________________________________