Firm claims it has not agreed to sign up to government payment initiative, despite business department claiming that it had
The government鈥檚 Construction Payment Charter has suffered a blow after it emerged that Kier has not agreed to sign up to the charter, despite the business department claiming it had.
The Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) unveiled the details of the construction payment charter, drawn up by the Construction Leadership Council, last month.
The charter commits clients and main contractors who sign up to pay all suppliers within 60 days immediately. This would then be reduced to 45 days from June 2015 and to 30 days by January 2018.
In a statement launching the charter, BIS said Kier was among nine firms that had 鈥渁greed to sign up to the charter鈥�, along with Laing O鈥橰ourke, Skanska and a number of major clients.
But this week Kier, one of the UK鈥檚 largest contractors, said it had not signed up to the charter nor had it agreed to do so.
A Kier spokeswoman said that while the firm was 鈥渧ery supportive of the principle of fair payment terms across the supply chain [鈥 we haven鈥檛 signed the charter, as we believe that we need commitment from the wider supply chain to make the principle work in practice鈥�.
黑洞社区 understands the 拢2bn-turnover firm holds concerns over a number of aspects around how the charter will operate, including how shorter payment periods may affect the company鈥檚 cash flow.
Paul Sheffield, chief executive of Kier (pictured), has previously voiced concerns about the use of project bank accounts, which will become more widespread under the charter, saying they could make it 鈥渋mpossible for tier one contractors to generate significant cash surplus on projects鈥�.
A BIS spokeswoman insisted this week that Kier was 鈥渃ommitted to supporting the charter鈥�.
But she added: 鈥淣o one has been asked to sign the payment charter, not least because monitoring arrangements are yet to be put in place.鈥�
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