“Let and forget” culture is the enemy

There’s a familiar moment in many procurement processes where everyone exhales. 

The evaluation is finished, approvals are complete, and the contract is awarded and signed. After weeks or months of pressure, the work has finally crossed the finish line.

Anyone who has worked in public procurement will understand this feeling. A well-run procurement takes time, coordination and focus, especially when teams are balancing legal requirements, market engagement, internal governance, evaluation, stakeholder expectations and tight deadlines.

But this moment can create a false sense of completion. 

The contract may be signed, but the public body has yet to receive the service, infrastructure, technology or wider outcome that justified the procurement in the first place. All of that still has to be delivered. 

This is one of the key points of the UK Government’s Contract Management Playbook. It’s a reminder that public value can be lost after a contract has been awarded, even when the procurement itself was well-run. It directly challenges the “let and forget” culture and brings attention to the work that has to happen after award: managing delivery, change, risk, supplier and stakeholder relationships, exit, and learning for future contracts.

It’s not enough to know that a contract exists. Someone needs to know what the supplier promised, what the authority promised in return, which obligations are critical, which risks are live, what performance data is reliable, what happens when delivery slips, and how decisions are recorded.

This might sound basic until you look at how many contracts are managed through scattered documents, inherited assumptions, unclear ownership and meetings that don’t always lead to action.

 

Why “let and forget” happens

A procurement team spends months managing a competition through to award, only then to turn almost immediately to the next urgent requirement. The contract manager then inherits an agreement they may have had little or no involvement in shaping, while operational teams are already focused on day-to-day delivery. As the contract moves into live management, supplier performance data can quickly spread across spreadsheets, inboxes, shared drives, portals and meeting notes.

Each team may be doing their part, but without shared visibility, a disconnect can develop between the contract that was awarded and the way it’s managed in practice. 

A KPI may have looked sensible during procurement, but later prove difficult to measure because the data is unreliable or nobody agreed who would validate it. An obligation may depend on action from the authority, but if that dependency is not owned, the supplier’s performance can suffer while both sides argue about responsibility. A change may feel operationally harmless at first, yet still carry legal, financial or commercial consequences that need proper assessment before it becomes the new way of working.

This is where public value is lost; through small, cumulative issues such as missed obligations, weak data, avoidable disputes, delayed interventions, and poor handovers

 

Contract management should influence procurement design

One of the key messages in the Playbook, and a theme we explored more practically in “Before you sign: 7 contract management questions every public buyer should answer”, is that contract management should not be confined to the post-award stage.

Contract managers have an important role to play before the contract is signed because they can see practical delivery problems that may be less obvious during sourcing. Their input can help test whether requirements are realistic, whether a KPI will produce useful evidence, whether governance is proportionate, and whether mobilisation has been properly planned. That perspective can save a great deal of pain later.

For example, a sourcing team may design KPIs that look quite strong on paper, but a contract manager will likely be able to look at it from a delivery-perspective and ask whether the data can actually be collected, who will validate it, how often it will be reviewed, what happens if performance falls below target, and whether the KPI measures activity, quality, user experience or the outcome that matters most.

Those questions improve the contract before delivery begins, and they reduce the risk that the contract manager receives an agreement that’s technically complete but operationally difficult to manage. 

This is one of the clearest ways to move beyond “let and forget” and bring delivery reality into procurement design. 

 

Mobilisation deserves more attention

The period immediately after the award is often treated as a transition step. In reality, mobilisation can determine whether the contract starts with clarity or confusion. 

Mobilisation is the point at which the written contract becomes a working relationship. It’s where both parties clarify roles and responsibilities, confirm milestones, align expectations, establish reporting processes, agree meeting cadences, review risks, and prepare for successful delivery.

The playbook points to practical tools such as contract management plans, obligations matrices, risk registers, payment trackers, relationship management plans, issue logs, change control registers, continuous improvement plans, and exit plans. And these are the working infrastructure of contract delivery. 

A good mobilisation process should answer basic but critical questions like, who is responsible for each obligation? What does the supplier need from the authority to deliver successfully? How will issues be escalated? How will performance data be reported, challenged, and recorded? What would a successful first 90 days look like?

When these questions are left unanswered, both sides begin delivery with assumptions, and assumptions are a poor foundation for good contract performance. 

 

Performance management should be evidence-based 

Good contract management depends on evidence.

That means knowing what the contract requires, what performance data is available, whether the supplier is meeting agreed standards, and whether the contract is delivering the intended outcomes. 

The playbook places significant emphasis on KPIs, SLAs, supplier scorecards, management information, performance reporting, audit rights, service credits, rectification plans, and accurate record keeping. This is important because performance management without reliable evidence can quickly become subjective. 

Good performance management isn’t about “catching suppliers out”, but about creating a shared understanding of delivery. 

If the performance is strong, the authority should know why and whether that success can be repeated elsewhere. If the performance is weak, the authority should be able to identify if the issue sits with the supplier, the authority, the specification, the operating environment, or a combination of these. 

If a KPI is repeatedly missed, the response shouldn’t be automatic blame, but structured diagnosis. What has changed? Which obligation is affected? What does the data show? Is the issue temporary or persistent? Does the contract need a lawful and properly governed change?

This approach protects the relationship while maintaining accountability. It also gives public bodies a better chance of intervening before problems become failures.

 

Exit planning should start early

The Playbook makes a simple but important point: exit planning shouldn’t be left until the end of the contract.

Poorly managed exits can create disruption, additional cost, knowledge loss, and continuity risks. Good contract management means planning early for how services, data, assets, and knowledge will transition when the contract ends.

It doesn’t mean spending every contract review talking about termination, but about making sure the authority understands what information it will need, what dependencies exist, what continuity risks could arise, and what the supplier is required to maintain or provide. 

The end of a contract should be a managed transition, not a cliff edge.

 

Closing the loop 

Every contract creates insight. 

It reveals what worked well, where challenges emerged, which KPIs drove the right behaviours, where obligations or expectations were unclear, which risks materialised, and which assumptions proved incorrect. It also highlights the experiences of suppliers and end users, and what could be improved next time.

If that learning isn’t captured and fed back into future sourcing and contract management activity, valuable intelligence is lost. 

This is why ending “let and forget” isn’t only about managing individual contracts more effectively, but also about building a more informed and continuously improving procurement system.

A mature public procurement function doesn’t simply award contracts and move on. It informs better procurement design, stronger supplier engagement, more realistic requirements, sharper KPIs, and better mobilisation planning.

This may be one of the most important cultural changes behind the Playbook. Contract management should close the loop between what was bought, what happened in delivery, and what should be done differently next time.

Without that loop, public bodies repeat avoidable mistakes. With it, every contract becomes a source of better procurement practice.

 

Ending “let and forget”: what public bodies should ask themselves now

The Contract Management Playbook is a timely reminder that public sector organisations should look seriously at the capability, capacity, tools, and governance behind contract management.

Fair competition is important. Transparency and market engagement matters. But none of these guarantee delivery on their own. 

The next challenge is active delivery management. 

That means treating contract management as a strategic capability, investing in the people responsible for it, giving them the right tools and data, involving them earlier, and most importantly, recognising their role in protecting public value. 

The public sector doesn’t need more processes for the sake of processes. It needs contract management practices that make delivery clearer, risks more visible, suppliers more accountable, and outcomes easier to achieve. 

The next stage of procurement maturity will depend on how well public bodies manage delivery, not only how well they run competitions. Ending “let and forget” culture means treating contract management as a strategic discipline, with the same seriousness given to sourcing and award.

Once the contract is signed, the real work of managing delivery, performance, and outcomes begins.