SEC backs government action on bad payers

UK: The Specialist Engineering Contractors’ (SEC) Group has welcomed the UK Government’s decision to implement a package of measures to support government suppliers. 

SEC Group’s CEO, Rudi Klein, said that he was particularly pleased that the government intends to exclude poor payers from government procurement.

“We have been urging the Government to introduce a yellow/red card system for a long time. The yellow card is a warning to improve payment performance and the red card excludes a continuing poor performer from bidding for government contracts for a period of 2 to 3 years.”

Rudi Klein added that if such a system had already been in place Carillion would have been excluded from government contracts.

However, SEC Group believes that on payment security the Government needs to go further by requiring that project bank accounts are put in place for all public sector projects, and should now give its support to the Aldous Bill to protect retentions.