Ineffective contract management practice can have devastating impacts on organisations – combining financial, legal, and reputational damage that may take years to resolve.
Local authorities, with their supply chains numbering in the hundreds, even thousands, and featuring the biggest beasts of construction, consultancy and technology rubbing shoulders with smaller, local and community-interest organisations – have some of the most complex commercial ecosystems.
Making a success of priorities like social value – making sure outcomes are properly monitored and audited – is just one consideration of the modern contract management landscape. We should not just expect that contract managers will automatically absorb, or be able to access, the latest training, advice and guidance.
Local government was the first sector to start to grapple with and address the idea of social value. In many ways, it has always been there. What better way to grow your local economy, to encourage job creation and skills development, and to reduce carbon emissions, than by buying locally?
Central Government is trying to build social value more firmly into the foundations of our procurement system.
The Social Value Act turns 10 this year, and along with more recently published guidance, has helped embed social value into standard procurement practice.
The Levelling Up White Paper published in February also restates the Government's commitment to, as it puts it, ‘weaving a thread of social improvement and civic responsibility' through procurement.
This is why Crown Commercial Service (CCS), the UK's largest public procurement organisation, and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) are investing now to upskill local government officers whose responsibilities include contract management.
The Local Government Association identified local authorities most in need of contract management learning and development support – including some who faced challenges recently over their management of commercial affairs.
These authorities were offered the opportunity to apply for training that would inform and drive organisational change around contract management: identifying good practice, sharing evidence-led best practice, and embedding stronger behaviours for local authorities that manage contracts worth billions of pounds every year. More than 15,000 professionals across central Government and the wider public sector have already completed similar training.
It is estimated those who have successfully completed the Government's accredited commercial learning and development programmes have contributed to combined savings of around £750m across a range of contracts.
The Contract Management Pioneer Programme has already seen places created for almost 350 local authority staff to complete a training programme developed and delivered through the Cabinet Office Commercial Capability Programme and the Government Commercial College.
It is administered by DLUHC's new local government commercial capability team, who have established a holistic programme that supports learners through additional learning and development initiatives, as well as councils undertaking internal organisational change.
The programme addresses the key elements of the contract lifecycle – including negotiation, management, and monitoring. Learners apply this knowledge to their own local authority – identifying what works, why it works, and how it works, in how they currently manage commercial contracts.
As part of the training, delegates join a learners' network to support their peers across local government and further embed best practice and organisational change.
The Contract Management Pioneer Programme is one way CCS is reinvesting the levy it raises from the business suppliers' through our procurement frameworks back into the public sector.
We generate our income by applying a levy on our agreements. This is a model most public sector buying organisations use to fund the services they offer.
The more spend that comes through our agreements – not only do we use that income to cover any increase in operating costs, but we can also invest in raising the bar – the more can be invested in public procurement capability and sharing the benefits of that across the public procurement and commercial community.
Local and central government face many similar challenges, and we have to find ways we can collaborate and share best practice. Jointly upskilling our contract management experts is one example of how we can do that.
David Bemrose is Crown Commercial Service's head of account strategy for local government
