Request for Information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (‘FOIA’)
Information on late payment
This is a request under FOIA for details of instances in which Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (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.
Request
With the above points in mind, we request under FOIA that you provide, (preferably in Microsoft Excel or an equivalent machine-readable format) the following information in respect of suppliers which were not paid in within 30 days for the period starting 1 April 2023 to the date of this request:
1. Supplier Name
2. Invoice Date
3. Gross Invoice Value
4. Payment Date
5. Late Payment Compensation or Interest Paid (if any)
Clarification:
We reiterate that this request:
(a) Â Â 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) Â Â 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) Â Â does not require the disclosure of any confidential information or information to the production of which there could be any other lawful objection.