Public Procurement and Property

Including Project Banks Accounts in annual procurement reports

July 24, 2019 by Lorraine Carlyle No Comments | Category Best practice, Economic Action Plan, Procurement news, project bank accounts, Scottish Procurement, SMEs

Did you know that your organisation’s annual procurement report can mention the use of PBAs? They can be used as evidence of how a contractual procedure has implemented your prompt payment policy within in-scope construction projects.

How it works?

Paragraph 2.5.12 of Scottish Government’s statutory guidance for the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 asks public bodies to consider monitoring the prompt payment of sub-contractors. It suggests carrying out spot checks and/or using PBAs as potential methods. Mentioning the use of PBAs means your organisation would meet the requirements of paragraph 2.6.2. It states that an annual procurement report should include a brief statement detailing the methodology used to review its regulated procurements.

Improving economic performance

Using your annual procurement report to include information on PBAs can help tell the broader story. Prompt and protected subcontractor payments in a PBA can help deliver sustainable economic growth through better and more predictable business cashflow.

Include the following simple details for consistency:

• number of open PBAs during reporting period
• cumulative value of contract sums involved
• cumulative value of sums deposited into PBA by contracting authority
• total number of subcontractor beneficiaries across all PBAs
• average time between contracting authority depositing payment into PBA and beneficiaries receiving payment from PBA

Tags: annual procurement report, construction projects, contracting authorities, Economic Action Plan, Guidance, procurement reform, project bank accounts, public sector

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