Not whether the monitoring regime exists, but how well the authority runs it: whether the report arrives and is validated before the invoice is paid, how much of the performance data is the contractor's word and how much the authority has checked, whether the audit and inspection rights have ever been used, what happened to the deductions and the exclusions, whether rectification closes, and whether the records would stand up. A maturity level per dimension, the overall level at the lowest, never an average.
v1.0 — September 2026
Eight dimensions of monitoring practice, each at one of four levels: Reactive, Informal, Systematic, Assured. For each dimension the team states its level against a written description, and the register figures for the periods reviewed cap it: a level the figures contradict is not credited, and a dimension with no figures at all is held at Level 2. The overall level is the lowest dimension. The dimensions, the register fields and the statuses (reported against verified, calculated against waived, required against completed) follow the product's Build 2 performance, payment and evidence registers; the rights and periods are the precedent's monitoring, payment, records and default clauses. The Contract Health Check asks whether the regime exists; this asks how it is run, and the regime entries here are context, not score.
What the agreement provides. The Contract Health Check tests whether these exist and hold together; here they are recorded so that the practice can be measured against them and so that a right the contract does not give is not scored as a right unused. A regime gap is reported as a note. The paste-text step proposes the provisions present with the phrases found; it proposes the weakest option the phrase supports and never sets a number.
Paste the agreement, schedules included. The tool looks for the periodic report and its due day, the validation window, self-monitoring and the authority's own monitoring, the increased-monitoring trigger, the quality audit right, records and helpdesk data, audit access, retention, service failure points, warning notices, the annual plan and report, the satisfaction survey, the disputed-amount window, the no-set-off clause, benchmarking and a blank payment schedule, and proposes the provisions present with the phrases found. It proposes the weakest option the phrase supports; nothing is set until you accept it; no number is ever set from the text. The text stays in this browser tab.
Counts from the authority's own registers for the periods reviewed. Where the register does not hold a figure, leave it blank: a blank is reported as not evidenced, and where a rule would test it (its base is above zero, or it is the base of a figure entered) the dimension is held at Level 2 until it is entered; the field is marked after the run. A dimension whose figures are all blank is held at Level 2. A zero is a fact and counts.
For each dimension, choose the description that fits the way the work is done today, not the way the procedure says it should be. The figures on tab 2 cap the level: a level the figures contradict is not credited, and a dimension with no figures is held at Level 2.
| Dimension | Stated | Level | Basis |
|---|
| Indicator | Value | Read |
|---|
The level above is a suggestion computed from the entries. A named person records the decision; an override does not change the suggestion, it sits beside it in the export. The block clears whenever the assessment is re-run.
The Performance Monitoring Maturity Assessment asks how well a contracting authority runs the monitoring regime its contract gives it. It is screening-level. It takes the counts the team can read from its own registers for the periods reviewed, the team's own description of its practice, and the provisions of the executed contract, and returns a level per dimension and an overall level with the reasons. It does not measure the private party's performance, decide a deduction, characterise any conduct, or certify anything; it measures the authority's grip on the numbers it pays against.
The Contract Health Check in this series asks whether the regime exists and holds together: whether each KPI has a target, a method and a data source, whether the monitoring system is installed and accessible, whether deductions are calculated and applied. This tool records those provisions as context so that a right the contract does not give is not scored as a right unused, reports a regime gap as a note, and scores practice only.
| Level | Name | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reactive | The authority reacts to what the contractor reports or to complaints; no check of its own, no register that separates reported from verified, deductions and rectification handled case by case. |
| 2 | Informal | Checks happen, records exist, but not on a cadence and not to a standard: some reports validated, some results verified, some deductions applied, rights used occasionally, evidence files patchy. A dimension with no figures entered is held here. |
| 3 | Systematic | The cadence is kept: reports validated before payment, a register with reported and verified kept apart, the authority's own checks on a plan, deductions calculated and applied in the period, rectification tracked with due dates, evidence filed per period, waivers logged as decisions. |
| 4 | Assured | Systematic, and tested: verification covers a stated share of results by design, audit and access rights used on a schedule with outcomes notified, the recorder and the validator are different people, the tally against default thresholds is reconciled with the contractor's, the annual review, the survey and the lifecycle check feed back into the plan. |
The product this series draws on, PPP Contract Review & Operating Map v1.0.0, runs the operating phase through registers whose statuses this tool borrows: a KPI record carries a source (authority, contractor, site record, system import, independent certifier and so on) and a verification status (unverified, under verification, verified, rejected) that a person with the validator role sets, and the product refuses to conclude a breach from a figure that is not verified; a deduction carries a status (not calculable, potential, calculated, agreed, disputed, waived), and the register note says a deduction is computed only where the formula is unambiguous and the inputs are verified; rectification carries required, in progress, completed, failed; evidence carries required, received, verified, missing, disputed. The dimensions follow those registers. The table lists every cap the code applies. A blank figure a rule would test holds its dimension at Level 2 as not evidenced (a numerator blank against a base above zero; a base blank under a numerator entered; a count above a base of zero, which is inconsistent and gives no share), and so does a dimension whose base is a zero the tool cannot test (no report due, no result recorded, no failure established, no rectification expired); a practice select answered "not applicable" is not evidence.
| Dimension (primary figures) | Cap at 1 | Cap at 2 | Cap at 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Reporting cadence and validation (reports on time, late, missing; invoices paid unvalidated) | Half or more of the reports due not received; invoices paid unvalidated in half or more of the periods reviewed. | Any report not received; any invoice paid unvalidated; on-time share of the reports due below 75 per cent. | On-time share below 95 per cent. |
| 2. KPI measurement and data quality (KPIs measured at the contract's frequency; KPIs with a readable source; log reconciliation; erroneous reports) | None. | Measured share below 70 per cent; no KPI with a readable source; the log not reconciled; the most erroneous reports in any window of a limb of the trigger at or above that limb's figure, where the contract has the trigger (the limbs entered as fields). | Measured share below 100 per cent; readable share below half; the log reconciled only sometimes. |
| 3. Verification against self-reporting (results recorded and verified; exercises; outcomes notified; fraud; independent monitor) | No KPI result recorded; no result verified and no exercise; misreporting notified as fraudulent with the increased-monitoring notice answered "not used", where the contract gives the right. | Verified share below a quarter. | Verified share below three quarters; results verified by reconciliation only, with no exercise; outcomes not notified, or outcomes notified only sometimes; an independent monitor present and not used. |
| 4. Audit and access rights exercised (audits against the interval, or the last audit where the interval implies one or none in the window; records access; the contractor's QA reports) | No audit and no records access exercised, where the contract gives both rights. | Audits below half of those the interval implies (where it implies more than one); no audit in the window and no last audit date; records access never exercised where the right exists; a records right as entered with no access in practice. | Audits below those the interval implies; the last audit older than the interval; the contractor's QA reports received and not read, or not received. |
| 5. Deductions, exclusions and payment (failures, calculated, applied of those neither waived nor disputed, waived, exclusions checked, notices, set-off, caps, traceability) | Failures with no deduction calculated; set-off taken while disputed where the contract has a no-set-off clause. | Deductions calculated for fewer than three quarters of failures; waived and disputed together at half or more of those calculated (not evidenced); applied share below three quarters; waivers not logged; waivers at half or more of the deductions calculated; exclusions checked below half; a disputed-amount notice late; deductions not traceable. | Deductions calculated for fewer than all failures; waived and disputed together above a quarter of those calculated; applied share below 100 per cent; waivers above a quarter of deductions (all logged); some waivers unlogged; exclusions not all checked; caps not checked every period; most but not all deductions traceable. |
| 6. Rectification and escalation tracking (rectifications expired and completed; overdue; repeats counted; points tallied; warning notices; cure) | None. | On-time completion below three quarters; repeats not counted; no tally where the mechanism exists; breaches at the warning threshold with no notice where the ladder exists. | Rectifications completed on time below 100 per cent; any rectification overdue; tally kept with nobody named; repeats counted only sometimes; cure not tracked, or cure tracked only partly. |
| 7. Records and evidence (complete evidence files) | No period with a complete file. | Complete files below half. | Complete files below 100 per cent. |
| 8. Review, lifecycle, plans and people (lifecycle check; annual documents; survey; benchmarking; staff) | None. | Lifecycle not checked; annual documents not received where required; no monitoring staff. | Lifecycle checked sometimes; annual documents late or not reviewed; survey not run when due or results not used, where required; benchmarking not run when due, where required. |
The overall level is a suggestion that a named person accepts or overrides with a reason; both appear in the export; no override is accepted while no level has been suggested.
The precedent has the contractor monitor its own performance under the payment mechanism (Clause 25.1), lets the authority monitor at any time for any purpose with the contractor's assistance and notify the outcome (25.2(a)), and lets it increase both its own and the contractor's monitoring where a report is fraudulent or a bracketed number of reports in a bracketed number of months are erroneous, until the contractor has shown it can report properly (25.2(b) and (c)); the contractor bears its own increased-monitoring cost on both limbs, and the authority's own cost is recoverable only on the fraud limb (25.2(d)). The monthly report is due on a bracketed Business Day after each period with the draft invoice; the authority reviews and validates it during a bracketed window before the final invoice (32.2). The authority may audit the contractor's quality system at approximately bracketed intervals and carry out other monitoring, spot checks and audits (29(e)), and the contractor's own quality manager audits the quality system and reports to both parties (29(a), 29(e)). The contractor keeps records of incidents, maintenance and staff matters, the first two open to the authority's inspection and all of them to its auditors (72.3, 72.4), with helpdesk data by direct access, for a bracketed number of years (72.5), and gives the authority's representative all records for any purpose in connection with the agreement (64); a quarterly list of information given to the lenders is provided (72.7). A disputed amount is notified by the authority within a bracketed window with evidence and is not set off until finally determined, save under the retention-fund provision (32.5, 32.6, 40). Service failure points count towards default on three bracketed windows (Contractor Default limbs (i), (j) and (k)); breaches that carry no deduction go through a warning notice and a final warning notice (36.1, 36.2). Deductions continue during a relief event but are disregarded for the default count (48.9). An annual service delivery plan and an annual executive report are due on fixed dates (31); a customer satisfaction survey, optional in the precedent, runs on stated dates (32.10); market testing has its own optional provision (32.11), and benchmarking is where the executed contract provides it. The precedent's payment mechanism schedule is blank, so the KPI list, the points, the caps, the ratchets and the rectification periods come from the executed contract. There is no operations-phase role for the independent certifier; verification in operations is the authority's own.
The product's rules cited in the findings: PO11 (a KPI measured with no evidence or data source stated), PO13 and PO14 (a deduction with no rectification step; rectification with no period), PO16 to PO18 (persistent-breach machinery not connected to KPI failure; failure straight to default; counts that differ between provisions), PO19 (measurement depends on a system nobody is obliged to maintain), PM4 and PM5 (invoice process incomplete, including submission timing; certification with no certifier or period), PM7 (no treatment of disputed amounts), PM12, PM16 and PM17 (a cap on a different basis; a KPI with no payment effect; a deduction triggered at a different figure). The product itself carries no alert for a late monthly report and files reporting dates as administrative; that gap is the reason the first dimension is here.
The optional step on the first tab is the same pattern engine as the other tools in the series. Here the targets are the periodic report and its due day, the validation window, self-monitoring and the authority's own monitoring, the increased-monitoring trigger, the quality audit right and its interval, records and helpdesk data, audit access, retention, service failure points and the default limbs, the warning-notice ladder, the annual plan and report, the satisfaction survey, the disputed-amount window, the no-set-off clause, benchmarking and a blank payment schedule. It proposes the weakest option the phrase supports (an audit right "with no interval stated" unless a finalised interval is found; records "partly" unless helpdesk data is named; annual documents "one of them" unless both are named outside the definitions; a survey always "optional", to be confirmed; warning notices only where both notices are found outside the definitions; points "bracketed" unless a finalised threshold is found), shows the option text on the proposal, flags bracketed figures as not finalised, and never sets a number.