Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Government Late Payment Survey

The Government are conducting a survey to understand from your experiences the extent of late payment within UK central government and English public sector contracts. Your responses will help them to assess the impact of the public sector prompt payment reforms which were introduced last year (30 day payment terms in public sector contracts and supply chains), and decide whether further measures are required and if so, what would be most effective.

The government are committed to making further improvements to payment practices, with a particular focus on supporting smaller businesses.

In completing the survey BESA would remind you that we support: 

• Enforcement and auditing of mandatory supply chain payment periods under the public contracts regulations.
• Project Bank Accounts - ring fencing public monies from the vulnerability of supply chain insolvency.
• Digital platforms to manage payment - creating visibility and transparency of payment.
• Small Business Commissioner & Mystery Shopper scheme - giving regulatory power to investigate procurement and payment problems on public sector works.
• Payment performance reporting - due to come into play in April 2017 to publicise bad payment behaviours.
• Further enhancement for monitoring and enforcement of the prompt payment code and construction supply chain fair payment charter.
• The introduction of a retentions deposit system to negate the opportunity for abuse of retentions.
• Increased deterrent of legislative late payment interest and corresponding compensation.

The survey is completely anonymous and we would encourage all BESA members to have their say - click here to take part.

Share this post