Contract management

We've written a lot about the importance of contract management and what it needs to include.

In short, a public organisation needs to monitor and manage a supplier’s performance to assess whether the public organisation is getting the full value that was identified during the procurement of the goods or services. It should determine how much monitoring and managing to do based on its assessment of risk and the costs and benefits of that monitoring and managing.

Monitoring and managing supplier performance should be a priority when the value and the risks associated with the procurement are high.

We recommend you read the following mix of guidance, success stories, and stories that others can learn from.

Inquiry into procurement of work by Westland District Council at Franz Josef

March 2019: This report concerns a decision of the Westland District Council to carry out work at Franz Josef to protect the town's wastewater treatment plant from flooding. The work was carried out on an urgent basis and resulted in the construction of a new 700-metres-long stopbank on the bank of the Waiho River. In this report, we acknowledge the serious nature of the flood risk the Council was dealing with, and the motivation of the elected members who were driving the decision to act in the community's best interests. However, we have serious concerns about what was done in this case.