TRANSPORT FOR WALES

It is the company's policy to agree appropriate payment terms with suppliers and to honour those payment terms based on the timely receipt of valid invoices. The company's standard payment terms are 28 days from receipt of invoice. In some instances, we contract with suppliers on their own payment terms which are usually less than the company's standard of 28 days from receipt of invoice. Wherever these differences arise, and so long they are stated within a mutually signed contract, we seek to honour to the supplier's own payment terms following the timely receipt of valid invoices.

The company seeks to deal with all suppliers in a fair and reasonable manner, aiming to proactively respond to and address queries and/or challenges as soon as they arise. In the event that a financial dispute cannot be resolved by the Transport for Wales Purchase Ledger Team, it would then be escalated to the management team within the finance department. In the event of a contractual dispute, such as the delivery of obligations and/or performance, individual project teams are responsible for addressing it in the first instance, with escalated support provided by the Contract Management Team. Further support is also provided by the Supply Chain Team where multiple disputes become a common practice with any single supplier.

Please note that our Percentage of payments not made in the reporting period due to a dispute as disclosed above includes only those contracts which have entered into a formal contractual dispute process. A common reason for invoices being paid late is because of informal queries or disagreements regarding amount or evidence to support the invoice – however we are unable to include this in our reporting, as our finance system does not record this data.