Understand what agencies must do to meet their obligations under the Government Procurement Rules. This includes maintaining a clear contract register and implementing right-sized contract management plans.
Agencies must use a contract management system that captures key contract details, as required under Rule 34. Organisations should have a method that lets them easily identify their contracts and access relevant details.
You can use the contract register template below if your organisation doesn’t have one already.
Agencies must have a contract management plan that is right-sized, taking into account the contract’s value, complexity, risk, and duration, as required under Rule 35.
Rule 35: Contract Management Plan
You may be able to assess a contract’s value, complexity, risk, and duration using your own contract management system. Or, you may have segmented your suppliers through a categorisation or segmentation process or system.
The planning phase of the Introduction to supplier relationship management describes how to do this.
Introduction to supplier relationship management
For contracts higher in value, complexity, risk, and duration, the contract management plan needs to be comprehensive. Your agency may already have a template or process for this, or you can use this one as a starting point:
You could also use a task register as a guide for which activities will be needed to support the implementation of your contract management plan (and your supplier relationship management in general).
For contracts lower in value, complexity, risk, and duration, the activities listed in Sections 1 and 2 of the Essential Task Register (‘Contract Management activities and ‘Performance Management’ activities) constitute a sufficient contract management plan for the purposes of Rule 35.
Guidance is available on creating a contract management plan, or you can email the advisory team.