Police fail to pay contractors promptly

Official figures for police payment practices show vast differences in the amount of time UK constabularies take to pay their contractors, including those supplying IT.



Companies doing business with the police in some parts of the UK see their invoices paid promptly within, say, 10 days, but others wait for more than two months.



This means there is a "huge gulf between the best and worst-performing forces" when it comes to payment, said the Forum of Private Business, which obtained the figures.



Released to the forum following its request under freedom of information rules, the figures suggest some forces make "little or no effort to pay" their contractors quickly.



Merseyside Police, for example, failed to pay any supplier within 10 days - in contrast to Northern Ireland's police force, where out 8 in 10 were paid inside the timeframe.



Nottinghamshire Police were the second slowest to pay inside 10 days, though Avon & Somerset left more than 60% of their suppliers out of pocket after 30 days.



The poor performances of "many" forces mean that, on average, UK police forces pay just 24% of invoices within 10 days and 77% within 30 days, the FPB said.



This comes despite repeated government appeals to public bodies to adhere to prompt payment policies, applying to departments in Whitehall and local authorities alike.



"Companies they [the police forces] deal with may well find their finances under serious pressure while they are waiting to be paid," said the FPB's Chris Gorman.



"It also means the poorly-paying forces may be limiting the range of companies willing to work for them to only larger businesses with substantial cash reserves.



"This is bad both for small businesses and for the public purse, as it means there will be less competition in the tendering process."



The forum called on poorly-performing forces to follow the example of their counterparts who are meeting the 10-day or 30-day payment timeframe, for their own good and for the survival of their local businesses.