Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) supplier information: FOI release

Information requested

Information on late payment

This is a request under FOISA for details of instances in which Scottish Public Pensions Agency (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.

As the Government has made clear, late payment remains a significant issue for business and a drag on the UK economy as a whole. It is clear that, despite what the law says, many suppliers have not received timely payment or the interest and compensation for late payment to which they are entitled by statute.

Public authorities must keep information on payment in order to comply with their legal obligations, and there is a public interest in ensuring both compliance and that unpaid interest and compensation is recovered from public authorities. If proper records are kept as they ought to be, then information in this respect ought readily to be available.

The information requested below is not confidential, and its disclosure under FOISA is not capable of adversely affecting any party’s commercial interests. This is because this request is aimed at data about late payment liabilities that have in fact arisen: the disclosure of this data cannot cause any additional liability to arise. We therefore do not anticipate any reasonable grounds for refusing this request.

In any event, there is strong public interest in transparency about these matters. Relevant factors in this respect include: enhancing public understanding and scrutiny of issues of significant importance to stewardship of the public purse and to economic growth; facilitating an informed debate about compliance by your authority with its contractual obligations and with Government policy; helping businesses that suffer from late payment (many of which are small and medium-sized enterprises), and encouraging improvements in payment practices by public authorities such as yours.

With the above points in mind, we request under FOISA that you provide, (in a machine readable format, preferably Microsoft Excel or CSV) 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. Invoice Due Date
5. Gross Invoice Value
6. Payment Date
7. Payment Terms
8. Late Payment Compensation or Interest Paid (if any)

Clarification:

We reiterate that this request:

a) is limited to information which should (if proper records are kept) be readily available from a purchase ledger system and should therefore be possible to retrieve without any difficulty and without imposing any significant burden;

b) relates to organisations (not individuals) who are entitled to be paid out of public funds for public services, and we do not require the disclosure of any personal information of any individual person;

c) does not require the disclosure of any confidential information or information to the production of which there could be any other lawful objection.

Compliance Assistance:

While we do not anticipate any grounds on which the requested information can lawfully be withheld, we nonetheless remind you of your duty under section 15 of FOISA to advise and assist requesters.

If you consider that it may be impracticable to provide all the requested information within the statutory timescales, then we shall be pleased to discuss with you the reasons for this, and to see what steps may reasonably be taken in order the address these.

For example, we would be content to receive the information in several parts, in another convenient  format (such as that which you may already have), or to prioritise (such as by the provision of greater value items, or by date).

If there be any other steps which you think could reasonably assist in providing the information, or refining the request, then please let me know.

Response

Please find attached spreadsheet detailing the required data.

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 202500494959 - Information Released - Spreadsheet

File type

Excel document

File size

15.9 kB