The UK General Election manifestos procurement promises: Greens

Out of the manifestos analysed, the Green Party one is by far the shortest. It is unsurprising then that there is not much to be found about procurement in it. The only proposal it contains is that they will campaign to bring the Prompt Payment Code into law and debar late payers from public contracts. This seems an odd suggestion to make bearing in mind the new Procurement Act includes a specific section (73) on implied terms for sub-contracts which include an obligation of prompt payment if the invoice is not challenged. It may well be that the Prompt Payment Code goes beyond the new provision but my gut feeling is that s73 has the potential to put in check the most egregious behaviours on payment by main contractors. Plus, s73 requires the payment to all sub-contractors to be done within 30 days and not only at least of 95% of invoices from SMEs.

While there is not much on procurement from the Greens that is not necessarily a bad thing since it spares procurement from, well, being specifically targeted with poor ideas. At least when it comes down to food, the Greens walk the walk and want to improve the farming system in general instead of just making life miserable for procurement officers with token gestures.