Fury over slow tube payments - Govt. fails best practice test - Public sector clients slammed by industry

Consultants working for London Underground under a framework agreement face delays of up to 10 months before they are paid.

The allegations are made by consultants who are disgusted at bureaucracy which blatantly contradicts John Major's declaration that the public sector should pay contractors within 30 days of receiving an invoice.

The problem centres on delays in the issuing, by LUL, of the commission numbers required by three engineering consultants before they can invoice for the work done. Consultants say that they sometimes wait for several months for such a number - and up to 90 days after that for payment of an invoice.

One consultancy boss said: "You can hang on for up to seven months before you can even invoice. In the meantime you still have to cough up for your staff. There's no reason for this except bureaucracy.

"LUL are the kind of people who would say that if you have got a problem with their procedures you should think of getting work elsewhere."

Another consultant agreed: "I have had to wait for up to six months at a time for a commission number. It's difficult to know where the problem lies because LUL is so complex and disparate that there's no single person you can approach to sort it out.

"It's a lot of money and cash flow is absolutely critical for consultancies. We never have a problem at the end of the financial year when LUL wants everything speeded up but we suffer for the remaining nine months of the year."

"We don't have problems with the payment of the invoices themselves," said a third consultant, "but there is a problem with the issuing of the commission numbers due to the bureaucracy at LUL."

A spokeswoman for London Underground said: "We are not aware of any delays in consultants being issued with order numbers. But if there is a problem, consultants should talk to whoever deals with their accounts or with the person who has contracted them to do the piece of work concerned." The Government has been slammed for its failure to become a best practice client and its inept response to Contract Journal's Building for Britain Campaign.

Industry insiders have accused the Government of paying only lip service to implementing the campaign's 10-point plan to improve the climate for construction.

Frank Thornley, regional director of Tilbury Douglas Northern building division and former regional chairman of the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors, complained this week of months of fruitless correspondence on the campaign with Tim Devlin, his local MP.

Following an interview, Devlin merely forwarded a vague reply from construction minister Robert Jones detailing existing initiatives.

Thornley said: "I asked him to tell me specifically what Government intended to do in response to each point in the Building for Britain campaign. But Jones' reply didn't address any of the points.

"It was muddled, figures were wrong and there were all sorts of errors. As far as construction, is concerned we don't think they are doing anything for us and the stuff they are trying to tell us is gobbledegook."

Jim Turner of the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors said: "The replies contractors have had back from the Government on the campaign have been incredibly self-satisfied whereas the truth is that it has not done anything for the industry so far. What real progress has the CIB made?"

Robert Jones accepted the campaign's 10-point agenda on behalf of Government in January. Copies of the plan, which proposes to resolve problems and make new attempts to promote training, exports and best practice by Government, were circulated to all departments.