Our new contract management arrangements are innovative because they incorporate best practice concepts for collaborative business relationships and managing outsourcing / external service delivery, including:

1. Specifying how the parties will work together in addition to what services are required - which is innovative as it is not normally a significant element of an outsourcing services contract;

2. Focussing on leveraging the benefits of creating and maintaining an excellent relationship through the preparation of a relationship charter between the parties and the establishment of robust and structured governance arrangements;

3. Specifying additional non-core activities which can often be overlooked to encourage better longer term planning to evolve the services and manage the assets over a ten year horizon (i.e. the term of the contract) and encouraging collaborative sessions which will result in benefits for customers, our agency and the service provider.

We have piloted and introduced some of these innovative concepts in our first generation contract which is now entering the expiry phase.

We are currently hoping to award our new second generation contract in the coming months and to mobilise the new service provider thereafter.

In addition, we have been sharing our approach with other public sector agencies in Ireland. For example, we presented our approach to a number of public sector agencies at training provided by the Global Sourcing Association in May 2018 and are due to present at a conference hosted by the Institute of Public Administration in October on Collaborative Contract Management – again sharing the approach set out in this case study.

We have also been active in sharing our lessons and new approach in this area with international transport agencies in Europe, including agencies in Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA.

Our approach was inspired by the training we received from the Global Sourcing Association which encouraged a collaborative and relationship-based approach to contract management and was further developed through our research of the ISO Standards in this area.

In terms of introducing these best practice concepts, we worked closely with our service providers and advisers (legal, technical and financial) to design an effective government framework and contractual documentation.

Customers benefit from better services.

Teams managing the tolling operation benefit from working in a more collaborative and relationship-based environment which develops their creative and people skills and results in more empowerment and better job satisfaction.

TII as a public agency benefits from better levels assurance, more transparent decision-making, improved forward planning and improved commercial results - which provides additional critical funds for investment in the network.

Introducing a more formalised and collaborative governance model has been beneficial in a number of ways.
For starters, it has resulted in a more rewarding working environment where ideas are nurtured and improvements implemented.

It has also resulted in commercial benefits in terms of gaining efficiencies more rapidly than might otherwise have been the case and delivering higher revenues.

While it is difficult to quantify the benefits accurately, we estimate that approximately half of the efficiencies and half of the improvements in revenues would not have occurred without introducing this collaborative governance model - and this equates approximately to €5 million per year.

Going forward we anticipate doubling these benefits and note that the majority of our tenderers were willing to reduce costs significantly based on this type of collaborative contract as they felt they were being given licence to evolve and adapt services in a more agile, creative and efficient manner.

The main challenge with respect to introducing a new and innovative type of collaborative governance model for our contract management was cultural. Some of our team were used to a narrower and more 'contractual' style of contract management and it took them some time to appreciate the benefits or value of the approach being proposed. Also some of the team struggled to visualise how the collaborative governance model would operate in the ‘real world’.

We tackled these issues through workshops where we discussed the pros and cons of the various approaches and of the potential benefits of progressing with a new contract management model until we were satisfied to progress with the change.

On a more minor point, our legal advisers found it challenging to incorporate some of the ‘softer’ concepts into the contract but they persevered and noted that the ISO standards (referred to earlier) were of assistance in this regard.

Introducing a new more collaborative relationship based contract management model requires senior management leadership and support to encourage a change of culture at many levels.

However, a change of culture and behaviour will not occur unless all participants believe in the new way of working. We think that this belief can be fostered in two ways:

1. Through experiencing the benefits first hand – so we would recommend identifying flagship projects to pilot the new model on and then encourage those who have been involved to share their experience and knowledge with others;

2. Through continuous learning and review of the approach in order to learn lessons and adjust the model as required.

We are convinced that evolving to a more collaborative and relationship-based governance model for contracts would result in significant benefits for public agencies involved in procuring and providing public services.

A governance model by its nature is quite structured so it can be replicated easily by other public agencies. However, changing culture and behaviours requires leadership and patience and, for example, it might be difficult to introduce a collaborative culture at the contract management level of an agency if the corporate culture is not so collaborative.

We have being sharing our approach with other transport agencies, particularly in relation to services and / or operational contracts and believe that many agencies are willing to invest more efforts in this area. We have also noted more science being applied to assessing behaviours and team dynamics for public contracts in other sectors which strongly indicates that more public agencies will move in this direction.

1. In the public sector good governance structures are now increasingly being acknowledged as vital for 'business as usual' as well as change management programmes and initiatives. However, sometimes the value or benefits of good governance or the need to embrace innovation are not widely understood. Therefore, we would recommend that efforts are made to help people to understand the potential benefits of good goverance and innovation before seeking to roll-out new initiatives.

2. Innovation rarely succeeds by accident. Therefore, we recommend that the same management skills and resources are applied to introducing an innovative concept as one would apply when undertaking any other challenging project or task.

3. Do not underestimate the fear or resistance to change but rather seek to understand those fears and formulate positive tactics and strategies to deal with them.

We are delighted to have the opportunity to share our innovation story and to make our submission.

We were also delighted as part of this process to learn about the OECD’s core values. In particular, we believe that it is vital that we all promote the core values of “open” and “bold” among public sector organisations - particularly with regard to innovation.

We can see that there are unfortunately many reasons for public servants to ‘keep their heads down’ and get on with their work without seeking opportunities for innovation; which is why best practice knowledge sharing initiatives like this are so important!

So thank you for taking the time to read our story and we are looking forward to reading and learning from all the other submissions.

As Michel de Montaigne the French renaissance philosopher and writer said, “It is good to rub, and polish our brain against that of others”. So let's continue to rub and polish!