Procurement Principles: Contract Management Issues Analysis Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of contract management and procurement principles, specifically within the context of public health. It examines both pre-award and post-award issues, highlighting the significance of effective procurement strategies and their impact on service delivery, relationship management, and overall contract performance. The report identifies key challenges such as unclear policies, poor documentation, and inadequate monitoring, which lead to issues like inadequate services, lack of interchangeability, and inaccurate billing. It explores the root causes of these problems, including a lack of skilled specialists and insufficient risk management. The analysis covers the impact of these issues on the health sector, emphasizing the importance of proper planning, clear specifications, and effective knowledge management. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for robust contract management to ensure that government contracts with private sectors are managed effectively, and the importance of identifying and mitigating risks to ensure the delivery of quality services. The report draws on various sources to support its findings and recommendations for improved contract management practices within the health sector.

Running Head: Procurement Principles
Pre-award and Post-award Issues in Contract Management and Procurement

Contract Management and Procurement Principles
Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Contract Management and Procurement................................................................................................2
Procurement.......................................................................................................................................2
Pre-Award Issues...................................................................................................................................2
Issues.................................................................................................................................................3
Root cause of issues...........................................................................................................................3
Analysis on the Pre-award Issues......................................................................................................3
Post-Award Issues.................................................................................................................................4
Issues.................................................................................................................................................4
Analysis on the Post-award issues.....................................................................................................4
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................5
References.............................................................................................................................................5
1

Contract Management and Procurement Principles
Introduction
The Contract management and the procurement have the best strategy and the practices
applied for the monitoring and documenting the performance. The guidelines over the
strategies and to the issues majorly cover the long term services on the contract basis. It
usually covers all the areas for the delivering the services, managing the relationships,
contracting administration services, improvements made in seeking the performances and
managing the changes. While the main focus on the guidelines based on the contracts and to
the commercial providers is to the follow the major principles based on the guidance which is
equally applicable to the arrangements with the in-house providers and to public sectors.
Effective procurement is the best way of practicing and becoming an important factor in the
Health department. It is the process that mainly ensures both the parties for to fulfil the
desires meet to their respective obligations effectively and efficiently.
Contract Management and Procurement
Contract Management can be defined as the continuous reviews and the management of the
contractual terms or the services which is been specified to all the service level agreements
which is been secured through the procurement process for ensuring about the outcomes
agreed are be delivered by the suppliers and partners. Health contract management and
governance have the limited resources and largely ineffective when the issues were
unaddressed.
Procurement
It can be defined as the process of the acquiring the goods and services. It helps in
processing the whole cycle of the organisation from identification of the needs from the
2

Contract Management and Procurement Principles
end process of the services for the end of the useful life of the asset and its disposal. It has
the main concerned for securing the goods and services that fulfils the best needs of the
users and towards the local community in order to achieve the main object and fulfilling
all the priorities (Shaw et al., 2013).
Pre-Award Issues
Health development and their management staff work according to the given program offices
to develop the program offices according to the development of the opportunities. It is the
key communication between the applicants and the health security staff during the pre-
awarded process. The information is been collected on the basis of submission of the task
which is generally been collected regarding to the applications for the prior knowledge to
award for the level of efforts etc. Generally, the organisation have the equal ratio of getting
the risks and it is basic to prevent from the risks, if it gets fail to identify the risks and to
overcome from it, the potential benefits are lost. The procurement has led for identifying and
initializing for addressing many issues and being raised in the contract (Petsoulas et al.,
2014). Health is taking an initiative for initialising and performing all the essential activities
to ensure the superior oversight over the agreements.
Issues
The various issues were raised due to unclear policies and procedures made when the process
was initiated. Difficulty was cause due to the issues and the Procurement delegations
regarding to the Contract depending on its nature and value. The main issue was been raised
on and mainly affected due to:
3

Contract Management and Procurement Principles
 Governance and accountability for the management of the contract was
poor due to Lack of Documentation
 The arrangements made regarding to the fundamental contract management
were not properly established.
 Mis-management and inefficient monitoring of the contract management plan
 Guidelines provided regarding the implementation of the contract were not
applied properly during the implementation phase
 Performance was based on the Data centre availability, management of the
incidence, accuracy and timely updating the configuration of the management
database, accuracy in the billing (Sampson et al., 2012).
Root cause of issues
The main concept of the contract management and the procurement was been designed on the
basis of delivering the various services and the activities. The organisation was involved with
the large contracts made between the government and to the private sector that must have the
continue process of doing the work well. Because of this organisation is ready and willing to
provide the facilities and the services to the government. The possible benefits of the
arrangements made are undeniable (Wye et al., 2015). However these services were not
presented during the delivery time.
Analysis on the Pre-award Issues
1. The arrangements was made at the initial level before implementing the services was
not properly initiated due to the lack of the skills which were unable to identify the
4

Contract Management and Procurement Principles
necessities of the health department for having the proper usability of the computing
services. There were less number of specialists and they too failed to identify and to
implement the main objectives and the goal with the proper strategies and designed
solution.
2. There was no appropriate management for monitoring the contract performance and
to cover the entire data centre for operating and monitoring to the sole data centre for
ensuring about the disaster recovery and to the services which mainly lack in the
essential capacity of the health care department. For this the earlier action was not
recognised because of the undedicated management. The specialist was not in the
practice when the contract was commenced (Checkland et al., 2013).
3. The guidelines which was specified and mentioned was not followed properly during
the delivery time of the services been made because the plan which was designed by
the management expertise were unable to access the potential risks and mitigating the
effects been made and to identify the potential risks on the basis of the recording and
monitoring of the contract to the purchased IT equipment’s.
4. Performance based on the inadequacy of the contract failed to the delivery of the
services and to the periodic performance were mainly have the different aspects of
covering the different aspects of the contract. The provision of the database was not
appropriate as they were not updating the database and to store the current data into
the database was failed due to the configuration was not made on time and it was not
accurately accessed by the managers.
5. The analysis was made on the inaccuracy of the billing as it was not made on the time
been specified in the contract (Taylor-Phillips et al., 2014).
5

Contract Management and Procurement Principles
Post-Award Issues
Post award is been referred when the awards been received and the research is done on the
basis of the issues been raise. It is been raised due to the bad impacts of the poor planning.
The contractors ensured that they will assist the best quality of services to the organisation
that complies with the terms and conditions but they intently failed to deliver because of lack
of management and resources which had a bigger impact on the loss of huge costs and to the
organisation budgets.
Issues
The Services provided by the contractors were inadequate and incapable of addressing the
demands of the health care system.
 Lack of Inter-changeability between the system
 Contractors was unable to update the description of the solution by 6 months
 Knowledge Management was not according to the contract terms.
 Tracking of the assets and management was not properly managed.
Analysis on the Post-award issues
1. System design was not dedicated to perform the operations and the ability of the data
centre were unable for the best practices between the data centres
2. Development of the Specifications was essential to have the clear specifications so as
to overcome from the risks of the contract disputes, cost blow outs and from the poor
outcomes (Wye et al., 2015).
3. Due to the poor documentation meant that contractors were unable to determine the
extent of the various level of delivering the services regarding to the various
executives level of health.
6

Contract Management and Procurement Principles
4. Knowledge management is an integral part of the business management, it is essential
that a provision is made for the knowledge management within the system; Moreover
the system was not having the appropriate provision. It was not been dealt according
to the specified terms and conditions during the contract time.
5. Tracking of the organisation asset was not functionalised and even the tracking cost
was not appropriate to monitor the contract expenditure on time. The analysis was
also made on the tracking cost against the budget because the variations were made
continuously to the cost (Gridley et al., 2012).
Conclusion
The organisation should be aware of the large contracts made between the government and to
the private sector that must have the continue process of doing the work well. Government
are unable to deliver the skills and capabilities to deliver the services. Because of this
organisation is ready and willing to provide the facilities and the services to the government.
The possible benefits of the arrangements made are undeniable. Generally they have the
equal ratio of getting the risks and it is necessary to prevent from the risks, if it gets fail to
identify the risks and to overcome from it, the potential benefits are lost. Health IT branch is
managing all the operational activities so as the same things should not appear in the near
future.
7

Contract Management and Procurement Principles
References
Checkland, K., Coleman, A., McDermott, I., Segar, J., Miller, R., Petsoulas, C., Wallace, A.,
Harrison, S. and Peckham, S., 2013. Primary care-led commissioning: applying lessons from
the past to the early development of clinical commissioning groups in England. Br J Gen
Pract, 63(614), pp.e611-e619.
Gridley, K., Spiers, G., Aspinal, F., Bernard, S., Atkin, K. and Parker, G., 2012. Can general
practitioner commissioning deliver equity and excellence? Evidence from two studies of
service improvement in the English NHS. Journal of health services research &
policy, 17(2), pp.87-93.
Petsoulas, C., Allen, P., Checkland, K., Coleman, A., Segar, J., Peckham, S. and Mcdermott,
I., 2014. Views of NHS commissioners on commissioning support provision. Evidence from
a qualitative study examining the early development of clinical commissioning groups in
England. BMJ open, 4(10), p.e005970.
Petsoulas, C., Allen, P., Checkland, K., Coleman, A., Segar, J., Peckham, S. and Mcdermott,
I., 2014. Views of NHS commissioners on commissioning support provision. Evidence from
a qualitative study examining the early development of clinical commissioning groups in
England. BMJ open, 4(10), p.e005970.
Sampson, F., O'cathain, A., Strong, M., Pickin, M. and Esmonde, L., 2012. Commissioning
processes in primary care trusts: a repeated cross-sectional survey of health care
commissioners in England. Journal of Health Services Research & Policy, 17(1_suppl),
pp.31-39.
8

Contract Management and Procurement Principles
Shaw, S.E., Smith, J.A., Porter, A., Rosen, R. and Mays, N., 2013. The work of
commissioning: a multisite case study of healthcare commissioning in England9s NHS. BMJ
open, 3(9), p.e003341.
Smith, J. and Woodin, J., 2011. Purchasing healthcare. Healthcare management, 2.
Taylor-Phillips, S., Clarke, A., Grove, A., Swan, J., Parsons, H., Gkeredakis, E., Mills, P.,
Powell, J., Nicolini, D., Roginski, C. and Scarbrough, H., 2014. Coproduction in
commissioning decisions: is there an association with decision satisfaction for commissioners
working in the NHS? A cross-sectional survey 2010/2011. BMJ open, 4(6), p.e004810.
Wye, L., Brangan, E., Cameron, A., Gabbay, J., Klein, J.H. and Pope, C., 2015. Knowledge
exchange in health-care commissioning: case studies of the use of commercial, not-for-profit
and public sector agencies, 2011–14.
Wye, L., Brangan, E., Cameron, A., Gabbay, J., Klein, J.H., Anthwal, R. and Pope, C., 2015.
What do external consultants from private and not-for-profit companies offer healthcare
commissioners? A qualitative study of knowledge exchange. BMJ open, 5(2), p.e006558.
9