By
4th Jul 2017

Since 2016 FE Colleges are required by The Public Contract Regulations to publish performance data on their website in relation to the payment of invoices. This report is due at the end of each financial year and should contain the following data regarding invoices paid during the previous 12 months:

  • Percentage of invoices paid within 30 days
  • The amount of interest paid to suppliers due to late payment
  • The total amount of interest that you were liable to pay, i.e. whether or not paid, whether statutory or otherwise, due to a breach of the Regulations

The data will demonstrate your performance on paying in 30 days to first tier suppliers over the previous 12 months. The data should be freely available via the Internet and maintained until replaced by a more recent set of statistics. Good practice would be to leave all past years’ data up for comparison purposes.

The Cabinet Office runs a “Mystery Shopper” service that investigates issues of poor procurement practices, both from public bodies and in public procurement supply chains. Suppliers can use this service anonymously to escalate issues about problems in public sector supply chains. Such problems may include the question of prompt payment. Mystery Shopper will name and shame any authorities or their first-tier suppliers that are proved to be poor payers.

More information on payment of invoices and a model template for this performance data can be found on The Further Education Library of Procurement (FELP) or please contact your Regional Procurement Advisor.

Note: These regulations apply to FE Colleges in England only. All Schools, Academies and Sixth Form Colleges are exempt. As are FE Colleges outside of England.