Contract Management: Compliance and Control Checklist

Our free checklist for contract managers and commercial leads, covering mobilisation through to exit

Most contract failures don’t happen at the procurement stage. They usually happen afterwards, at this stage nobody’s quite sure who owns what, invoices get approved without anyone checking them against the rate card, and performance conversations rely on what the supplier tells you rather than what your own data shows.

The Procurement Act 2023 has added a layer of formal obligation on top of that. KPIs have to be published before award. Performance has to be reported annually. Modifications need a documented legal basis. Contracts that end, whether early or at natural expiry, trigger a publication window. That’s a lot to keep track of across a portfolio of contracts, especially if the post-award foundations aren’t solid.

That’s what this checklist is for. It covers five areas where controls most commonly break down, maps the publication obligations under the Act, and sets out what you need on file to be audit-ready at any point. It works for contracts under the Procurement Act 2023 and can be adapted for PCR 2015 contracts still running alongside them.

Inside this free checklist

This practical guide walks through all five stages of the contract lifecycle and what good looks like at each one, including:

Strategy and needs assessment. Getting the route to market right before procurement starts isn’t just good practice under the Act, it’s a commercial obligation. The guide covers what the NPPS expects at this stage, how to align procurement decisions with organisational strategy from the outset, and how Quantum’s spend data supports better category decisions before a single specification is written.

Market engagement and procurement. The Act’s KPI requirements change the way procurement teams need to approach contracts over £5 million, because the performance framework has to be in place before award rather than built afterwards. The guide explains what that means in practice, and how PfH’s frameworks and DPS routes can reach a compliant award in as little as 10 to 15 days without compromising on process.

Contract award and mobilisation. A contract that isn’t set up properly at award tends to drift, and drift is expensive. The guide covers what the Act requires at this stage, including the contract details notice, formal KPI recording and supplier obligation documentation, and how Quantum’s obligations framework pins every commitment to a named owner from day one so nothing gets lost in the handover.

Active contract management. Research suggests poorly managed contracts cost organisations up to 9% of annual contract value, and it tends to happen without anyone noticing until the cost has already accumulated. The guide covers how to track KPI performance consistently, validate spend against agreed rates, spot off-contract purchasing before it compounds, and build the evidence base the Act now requires when supplier performance falls short.

Renewal, extension or retender. Contracts that aren’t actively managed towards their end date create problems that are entirely avoidable. The guide explains what the Act requires when a contract terminates, including the 30-day publication window, and covers how to structure the renewal decision process so you’re never scrambling to retender under time pressure with a supply chain gap opening up behind you.

Essential for procurement, finance and asset management professionals in social housing

Procurement managers and heads of procurement who need a clear picture of what the Procurement Act 2023 requires across the full contract lifecycle, not just at the point of award. Finance directors and financial controllers who need consolidated spend visibility, invoice validation and contract data in one place rather than pieced together from multiple supplier reports. Asset management leads who need to track capital spend in real time, hold contractors to account against agreed KPIs and mobilise programmes quickly without building the administrative infrastructure from scratch each time.

The organisations that manage contract compliance well under the new legislation won’t necessarily be the ones with the largest procurement teams. They’ll be the ones that have visibility of every obligation across their contract portfolio, and the right tools and routes to manage those obligations consistently from award through to expiry.

Download your free checklist now to see how PfH supports you across the full contract lifecycle.

Frequently asked questions

vWhat’s the difference between a contract management plan and a contract management checklist?

A contract management plan and a contract management checklist serve different purposes and work best when they’re used together rather than treated as alternatives. A contract management plan is a document specific to an individual contract. It sets out how that contract will be managed throughout its term: who’s responsible for what, how performance will be measured and reported, what the governance cadence looks like, how changes will be handled, and what the escalation routes are. The level of detail in a plan should reflect the risk and value of the contract it covers. A high-value, complex delivery contract needs a much more comprehensive plan than a straightforward, low-risk supply arrangement.

A checklist works differently. It’s a structured prompt that ensures the key controls are in place at each stage of the lifecycle, regardless of which contract you’re managing. It doesn’t replace the plan. It helps you confirm that the plan has been properly implemented and that nothing critical has been missed during mobilisation, governance setup or active management. For teams managing multiple contracts simultaneously, a checklist is also a practical way to maintain consistency across a portfolio without relying on individuals to remember every obligation from memory.

Under the Procurement Act 2023, having both in place matters. The Act’s transparency and reporting requirements mean that contract management decisions need to be documented and defensible. A plan without consistent implementation, and a checklist without a plan behind it, both leave gaps that can be difficult to explain if scrutiny follows.

What should be included in a contract handover pack from procurement?

The handover from procurement to contract management is one of the highest-risk moments in the contract lifecycle, and it’s one that social housing organisations frequently underinvest in. When the handover is rushed or incomplete, the contract manager starts their role without the context they need to manage the contract effectively, and that context gap tends to show up later as performance problems, invoice disputes or compliance failures that could have been avoided.

A complete handover pack should include the signed contract and any associated schedules, a summary of the key commercial terms including pricing, indexation provisions and break clauses, the KPIs and SLAs agreed at award, the supplier’s key contacts and the agreed governance structure, any risks that were identified during procurement that remain live, the notice requirements and publication triggers that apply under the Procurement Act 2023, and a record of any pre-award commitments or representations the supplier made during the procurement process.

For contracts over £5 million, the handover pack should also confirm which KPIs have been published in the contract details notice, since those are the ones that will need to be reported against annually for the life of the contract. It’s also worth including anything relevant from pre-market engagement or supplier due diligence that might inform how the contract is managed in practice. The test for a good handover pack is straightforward: if the contract manager left tomorrow, would their replacement be able to pick up the contract and manage it competently from day one using what’s in the file?

How should social housing organisations handle contract underperformance under the Procurement Act 2023?

Managing underperformance well requires two things that a lot of organisations don’t have in place at the same time: a clear process that everyone involved understands, and the performance data to apply it objectively. Without both, underperformance tends to be managed on the basis of relationships and conversations rather than evidence, which makes it harder to escalate formally and harder to defend if the supplier pushes back.

The starting point is an underperformance pathway that’s documented in the contract management plan before any issues arise. That pathway should move through defined stages: early warning when performance starts to trend in the wrong direction, a corrective action plan with agreed timescales and milestones, escalation when the plan isn’t working, and formal remedies as set out in the contract itself. Each stage should be triggered by data rather than judgment, which means the KPI framework and the validation approach need to be robust enough to support that.

Under the Procurement Act 2023, there’s an additional dimension to this. For higher-value contracts, a contract performance notice is required when a supplier is failing to meet its obligations. That notice goes on the public record, so the decision to issue one needs to be based on documented evidence and follow the correct governance route. Organisations that haven’t built a clear underperformance pathway into their contract management approach from the outset often find themselves in a difficult position here: they know a supplier is underperforming but don’t have the evidence trail to support a formal notice. Getting the performance measurement and documentation framework right during mobilisation is what makes the formal process manageable when it’s actually needed.

What financial controls should be in place for social housing contracts?

Financial control in contract management is about more than checking that invoices are paid on time. It’s about making sure that every payment is linked to evidenced delivery, that spend is tracked against budget and forecast consistently, and that the financial picture of the contract is always visible to the people who need to make decisions about it.

Invoice validation is the most fundamental control, and it’s also one of the most commonly skipped when teams are under pressure. Invoices should be checked against the contract terms and pricing schedule, and against performance evidence, before they’re approved for payment. Where there are discrepancies, they should be documented and escalated rather than resolved informally. Organisations that approve invoices without validation create a pattern that’s very difficult to reverse once it’s established, and the cumulative cost of billing errors that go unchecked across a contract term is significant.

Beyond invoice validation, the financial control framework should include spend tracking at the agreed governance cadence, a process for assessing and approving any requested price changes or indexation through the correct authority, a log of cost variations with supporting rationale and approvals, and benefit tracking that covers both cashable savings and non-cashable value outcomes. For organisations procuring through PfH frameworks, aggregated billing and spend optimisation tools reduce the administrative burden of this without reducing the level of control. The objective is a financial picture of the contract that’s always current, always reconcilable, and always available when it’s needed for reporting, benchmarking or board assurance.

What publication obligations apply to contracts under the Procurement Act 2023?

The Procurement Act 2023 introduced a set of transparency requirements that go well beyond what was expected under the previous regulations, and for many social housing organisations the publication obligations are the area of contract management compliance that’s least well understood. The obligations don’t all apply at the same point, and they don’t all apply to every contract, so it’s worth being clear about what’s required and when.

A contract details notice is required at the point of award. For higher-value contracts, this includes the published KPIs and may also require a redacted version of the contract itself to be published. A contract change notice needs to be assessed whenever a modification is made to the contract in terms of value, term, scope or ownership. Not every modification will require publication, but the assessment needs to be documented and the legal basis for the change confirmed before it’s agreed. For higher-value contracts, annual performance reporting is required and a contract performance notice must be published where a supplier is failing to meet its obligations. When a contract ends, a contract termination notice has to be published within 30 days, and that applies to contracts that reach their natural expiry as well as those that are terminated early.

The practical implication for contract management teams is that publication responsibilities need to be confirmed at mobilisation, not worked out case by case when something triggers a requirement. Knowing in advance who is responsible for each notice type, what evidence needs to be retained, and how to track what’s been published and when is what keeps the compliance position manageable across a contract portfolio.