CONTRACT
MANAGEMENT
FOR GOVERNMENT
MASTERCLASS 2027

Masterclass Agenda

8:30AM Registration | 9:00AM Start | 5:00PM Close

Topic 1

Who Actually Owns This Contract 

What you are accountable for once the procurement team has moved on.

• The accountability chain from accountable authority to contract manager, and where your delegation really sits
• What the PGPA Act and the Commonwealth Procurement Rules require after award, and the state and local equivalents
• Value for money as a continuing obligation, not a tender-stage test
• Probity duties that survive the procurement — conflicts, confidentiality and fair dealing
• What the ANAO, internal audit and Senate Estimates ask for, and what a defensible file looks like

Exercise: Map the accountability chain for a supplied case study and identify who is entitled to make which decision.

Topic 2

Setting Up to Manage

The first ninety days, and why most contract management plans fail at the first variation.

• The contract management plan — what it must contain and how detailed it needs to be
• Mobilisation, transition-in and the handover from the procurement team
• Reading your own contract properly: obligations register, key dates, notice provisions, options and expiry
• Risk allocation in practice — liability caps, indemnities and insurance, and what to verify annually
• Proportionate management: tiering low-value and low-risk contracts without ignoring them

Exercise: Build an obligations and key-dates register from a supplied services agreement.

Topic 3

Performance, Evidence and the Relationship

• Making service levels and KPIs measurable, and fixing the ones that are not
• Running a contract review meeting that produces a record rather than a conversation
• Abatements, service credits and performance regimes — why agencies hold them and never use them
• Managing the supplier relationship without drifting into informal agreement
• Where good faith ends and the contract begins

Exercise: Assess a supplied performance report against the contract’s service levels and decide what you would do next.

Topic 4

Variations, Scope and Extensions

The most common source of procurement disputes, and the easiest to get wrong.

• Variation or new procurement — where the line sits and what happens when you cross it
• Scope creep and the accumulation problem: small changes that become a procurement breach
• Exercising options and extensions properly, including notice timing and approval
• The binding email — how routine correspondence creates variations nobody intended
• Documenting a variation so that it survives audit

Exercise: Work through four proposed changes to a supplied contract and decide which can be varied and which cannot.

Topic 5

When the Supplier Stops Delivering 

What you are entitled to do, and the sequence that protects your position.

• Identifying and evidencing underperformance before it hardens into a dispute
• Escalation: the steps, the notices, the cure periods and the mistakes that weaken you
• Remedies short of termination — rectification plans, step-in, withholding and set-off
• Termination for cause and for convenience: consequences, cost and continuity of service
• Dispute resolution, internal escalation and preserving a relationship you may need to keep

Exercise:  Work through a breach scenario and determine the commercial and contractual response.

Topic 6

Payment, Exit and Close-Out

Finishing properly, and feeding what you learned into the next contract.

• Invoice verification and what you are certifying when you approve a payment
• Transition-out: data, assets, intellectual property, records and service continuity
• Supplier performance history and how it should inform the next procurement
• Retention, recordkeeping and what auditors expect to find on a closed file
• Lessons learned that actually get used

Exercise: Complete a close-out checklist against a supplied contract and identify what is missing.

4:30 PM

Open Clinic

An optional final session. Bring a general question or an anonymised scenario and work through it with the facilitator and the room. No documents required.