Executed Agreements and Contract Management

Storing Executed Agreements and Contract Management

Storing Executed Agreements

In accordance with Part D of the Contract Procedures a soft copy of every fully executed contract is to be provided to the Legal Office using the:

within 5 days of execution, or as soon as possible after receipt. The soft copy of the contract is then uploaded to the Legal Office's database, LEX, which also functions as the University's contract register.

The hard copy of the fully executed contract is to be sent to Corporate Records using the Central File Record Registration Form.

After the contract is uploaded to LEX, it is assessed by the Legal Office to determine whether it is a contract subject to Division 5 of Part 3 of the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (NSW) ("GIPA Act"). If so, the GIPA Act requires certain information about the contract to be disclosed on the SCU website, unless any of the statutory exemptions apply. If the contract is subject to the GIPA Act publication requirements, someone from the Legal Office will contact the instructing officer to discuss obtaining the information required for publication. See the GIPA Act Contract Register section of the website for further information.

Assistance with Contract Management

The University staff member submitting the soft copy of the contract to the Legal Office using the Executed Agreement Form can nominate specific review dates or pre-expiry reminders in the form and the Legal Office will record those dates/reminders in the contract database. The Legal Office then runs quarterly reports from the database to send to each work units detailing:

  1. Any new contracts created in the system for that work unit in the previous quarter;
  2. Expiry reminders and review dates appearing in the next quarter for that work unit's contracts;
  3. The work unit's contracts listed as actually expiring in the next quarter; and
  4. Contracts that appear to have ended or terminated in the previous quarter and which have been changed to a status of "closed" in the database on the basis that the Legal Office has not been provided with notice of any extension or variation to the contract.

It is anticipated that work units will use the reminders provided in quarterly reports as a prompt for taking any internal or external action necessary on a contract. For example, the staff member completing the Executed Agreement Form for a contract under which an outside party provides services to the University might set the expiry reminder for a date 6 months prior to the actual completion date of the contract to ensure that the work unit has adequate time to go to tender and select a new contractor before the end of the existing contract. Other examples of using reminders to assist with ongoing contract management include setting review dates in accordance with contract terms or to remind of the due date of an upcoming project report.

Please note that if the work unit does not nominate particular review or expiry dates in the Executed Agreement Form, the Legal Office will generally set just two reminders:

  1. One three months prior to the end of the contract; and
  2. One on the contract completion or end date.

If the contract is perpetual until terminated (i.e. no completion date or term is specified in the contract) the Legal Office might set (for example) a review date three years in to check with the work unit that the agreement is still on foot.

For more information on any of the above matters, please telephone the Legal Office on (02) 6620 3465 or send an email to the Legal Office alias.