THE Specialist Engineering Contractors’ (SEC) Group has welcomed an announcement by the UK Cabinet Office of its intention to exclude late payers from government contracts.
The organisation said the measure was “long overdue”. SEC Group CEO Professor Rudi Klein said, “For some years we have been advocating a yellow/red card policy for public sector procurement. In other words poor payers should be warned about their payment performance and then banned from public sector contracts if their performance doesn’t improve.”
The Reporting of Payment Practices and Performance Regulations 2017 requires large companies to report on their payment practices. This includes providing information about their standard payment terms and proportion of invoices which are paid late.
Professor Klein added, “Public sector procurers must also up their game to ensure they pay on time. Furthermore I now would expect the whole of the UK public sector to follow suit and proactively challenge payment abuse.”
