ONS late payments to suppliers

FOI reference: FOI-2025-2931

You asked

This is a request under FOIA for details of instances in which Office for National Statistics (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.

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 2019 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)

We said

Thank you for your request. 

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) makes payments against supplier invoices on behalf of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) and its executive arms (the ONS and Office for Statistics Regulation) from a central payment process. 

The associated download details all supplier invoices received by the ONS, covering invoices charged to the UKSA and its executive arms, that were paid later than 30 days for the period 01/04/2019 to 30/05/2025. The workbook contains 5,953 transactions, which makes up 7% of all invoices paid within the period i.e. 93% of all invoices paid within the period were paid within 30 days. 

The workbook does not distinguish between invoices that were disputed or not disputed with the supplier at the time. The data will therefore contain invoices where payment was withheld for valid reasons, such as waiting on the supplier to provide additional information to allow payment to be made. Zero interest or late payment compensation has been charged on these transactions.