b'responsibility to align the KPI to the desired outcomes at the front end of the procurement, one roundtable delegate said. It is not always clear whose job it is to define what the KPI is, and how to fine-tune the service\'s or Commissioner\'s requirement in that respect. At present, this issue is in the "too hard" box, and I suspect that is why it doesn\'t (on the whole) get done.In particular, the survey found that most lawyers (73%) are not regularly involved in the development of KPIs, which was generally agreed by delegates at the roundtable to be a mistake if those KPIs are to be enforceable further down the line. Without legal input at the outset of the process, the danger is that KPIs will be drafted in a way that either prompts unreasonable behaviour or makes any penalty mechanism for underperformance difficult to enforce.This is going to be really, really vital, said one (lawyer) delegate. What we do not want in a year\'s time when we come to publish that contract performance notice is, "oh, that doesn\'t mean that". "Oh, that\'s not actually the target". "Oh, what do we mean by "on-time"?" "What are the time limits?": thiswill be an area of pitfalls for the unwary, because someone who\'s a commissioner or a service lead isn\'t going to be aware of the intricacies of public procurement law. So I think lawyers have a very important role to play in the crafting of KPIs in relation to contract performance.At what stage in the process should KPIs be set?It was generally agreed that KPIs should be set out as early as possible in the process, preferably at the pre-market engagement stage as bidders need to be aware of how a contract will be measured and enforced before deciding whether to bid and/or how to construct their bid. It was, however,Its unfathomable to think that acknowledged by the roundtable that this hasthe KPIs, and the thinking and not been standard practice by manydiscussion around them would organisations in the past. KPIs frequently have not formed part of the discussions whenhappen at any point other than tendering in the past but rather inserted intopre-procurement.the contact post-award, if at all. Its negotiated later, which is not a healthy situation to be in, noted one roundtable participant.7'