Education Scotland supplier information: FOI release

Information requested

Details of instances in which Education Scotland (including, where applicable, any agencies, bodies, or units for which it is ultimately responsible for supplier payments) has failed to pay its suppliers on time, thereby causing liabilities for late payment compensation and/or interest on late payments to be incurred for the public purse.

The following information in respect of suppliers which were not paid in within 30 days for the period starting 1 April 2019 to the date of this request:

1. Supplier Name

2. Invoice Date

3. Invoice Received Date

4. Gross Invoice Value

5. Payment Date

6. Late Payment Compensation or Interest Paid (if any)

Subsequently you wrote to us and asked whether the following additional fields were available to be included in the response:

• Invoice due date
• Invoice approved date
• Invoice payment terms
• Reason for invoice query/dispute/delay

You noted that you were not seeking to amend or expand the scope of your request. However, if any of these fields (or similar) are already available within our system and can be provided without additional effort, it would be extremely helpful.

Response

The table at Annex A attached gives details of all invoices paid later than the terms laid out in the invoice received and includes the following details;

1. Supplier Name

2. Invoice Date

3. Invoice Received Date

4. Gross Invoice Value

5. Payment Date

On one occasion Education Scotland incurred a late payment fee (£40.00).

With regards to your additional request for information, Education Scotland does not gather the following information in a format which is readily available without undue additional effort.

• Invoice due date
• Invoice approved date
• Invoice payment terms

With regards to the reason for invoice delay or dispute, the Scottish Government replaced its existing finance and human resources systems with a single integrated Oracle cloud system and the ‘Go Live’ date was 1 October 2024. In the period following ‘Go Live’, while staff familiarised themselves with the new system, there were some delays in making payments.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202500485883 - Information Released - Annex A

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