Commercial capability: contract management standards
Source: gov.uk (2025-12-11)

Guidance from the Crown Commercial Service on contract management standards.

In December 2013 the Cabinet Office published a review of contracts held by G4S and Serco across all departments (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/taxpayer-compensated-for-overcharging-as-cross-government-contracts-review-concludes).

The review highlighted areas of focus for departments as the civil service continues its efforts to improve commercial expertise across government. Themes such as performance management, change management processes and incentives for service improvements were highlighted as priorities.

Following this publication, in consultation with departments, the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has developed:

contract management principles – a set of cross government principles that support our approach to contract management and work alongside departmental contract management manuals and guidance

contract management framework summary – a summary of the basic activities to take on during the operational phase of the contract, based on the good practice guide - managing the commercial lifecycle (https://www.nao.org.uk/insights/good-practice-guidance-for-managing-the-commercial-lifecycle/). Areas 1 to 8 were used to assess the contract management arrangements as part of the Cross Government Review of Major Contract

contract management operating model overview – a generic model of the main functions needed in contract and supplier management

Also, the contract, supplier and innovation management team at CCS has created a collection of contract management standards and templates for the use of public sector contract managers. These have now been replaced by an updated cross government Contract Management Best Practice Guide and Toolkit.

The Government Commercial Function (GCF) published the guide and toolkit on their Knowledge Hub website (https://khub.net). Instructions on how to access the interactive version of the guide on Knowledge Hub can be found at the bottom of this page.

The updated Contract Management (CM) guide is based on National Audit Office (NAO) contract management guidance and recommendations in their latest related reports, including the NAO Contract Management Best Practice Guide 2008 and ‘Commercial and Contract Management: Insights and Emerging Best Practice 2016’ guidance.

The CM guide has also been fully cross referenced with the latest Government Commercial Operating Standards.

Guidance for accessing the CM guide on GCF KnowledgeHub page (please note that access to GCF KnowledgeHub is available for public sector organisations only):

If you have not already signed up to KnowledgeHub, you will need to register as a user of the Hub. (https://khub.net/). You will then be asked to update your profile and accept the terms of use (scroll right to the bottom of the page).

Once you have access, you should see a banner to join the Government Commercial Function Community at the top of the page. Simply click the join button.

When you have done this, the full guidance and all templates can be accessed by clicking the ‘CM Guide’ heading on the main Knowledge Hub GCF page.

You can then view and download the guidance and tools.