The Department for Business and Trade has announced that it will shortly publish a Prompt Payment & Cash Flow Review, and will extend and improve the Reporting on Payment Practices and Performance Regulations 2017.
The Regulations require entities within scope to produce a report on their invoice payment practices every six months and submit the report to a government-hosted website for publication.
The announcement follows the government's statutory review of the Regulations, which noted that they had brought greater transparency and symmetry to the payment practices and performance of large businesses, but concluded that more needed to be done. Almost 90% of the respondents to the call for evidence ahead of the statutory review said that the Regulations should remain in place after their current expiry date of 6 April 2024, so in January 2023 the government published a consultation on proposals to extend and strengthen the Regulations (for further details see our blog post here).
The government announcement confirms that it will extend the Regulations and introduce new metrics for reporting, including a value metric for invoices paid late and a disputed invoices metric. Businesses in the construction sector will also be required to report on retention payments.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
