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Public alignment statement

PPN 021 Payment Spot Checks in Public Sub-Contracts

Episodic ICCE recognises PPN 021 - Payment Spot Checks in Public Sub-Contracts as a significant public-procurement and contract-management source for checking payment performance within public sub-contract supply chains. The source sets expectations for public-contract scope, section 73 payment terms, contractual information rights, six-monthly spot-check cadence, supplier notification, invoice sampling, payment-timing evidence, insufficient-evidence handling, remediation, follow-up, publication and complaint-related evidence.

Those expectations are practical, transaction-led and evidence-sensitive. For temporary-labour activity, they create a clear need to preserve the boundary between worker payroll and public sub-contract invoice payment. Worker wages, gross or net payroll, statutory employer costs, timesheet approval, payroll funding, agency payroll-related transfers, worker payment instructions, ICCE Platform Fees and payroll reconciliation are not substitutes for public sub-contract invoice, receipt, dispute, due-date and payment-completion evidence required by PPN 021.

ICCE aligns with those expectations as a Collaborative Procurement-Support Provider for ICCE-routed temporary-labour activity. It supports authorised contracting authorities, suppliers, contractors, procurement teams, framework providers, contract managers, responsible-procurement functions and auditors by preserving controlled evidence relevant to external contract context, counterparty attribution, evidence requests, exception states, remediation records, release controls, source lineage, correction history and audit reproducibility. ICCE does not determine whether PPN 021 applies, classify public sub-contracts, conduct official spot checks, select official invoice samples, determine breach, calculate statutory interest, contact the Public Procurement Review Service, publish outcomes, certify section 73 compliance or act as a supply-chain finance provider.

Episodic maintains a continued alignment commitment by reviewing this statement where PPN 021, associated guidance, model contract terms, evidence-request process, invoice-sampling rules, publication templates, Procurement Act payment provisions, Public Procurement Review Service context, PPN 018 relationship, UMS-505 procurement-support outputs or ICCE-routed evidence controls are amended, replaced, superseded or materially clarified.

Alignment table

Expectation Relevant sources ICCE enforced alignment ICCE evidence / output
Scope, applicability and public-contract context Domain 1 - scope, threshold, timing and applicability ICCE preserves externally supplied PPN applicability, public-contract, supplier, annualised value, notice-date, sub-contract and review-period references while keeping legal applicability external Procurement-context record, public-contract identifier, supplier reference, PPN applicability reference, limitation statement
Section 73 payment-term boundary Domain 2 - section 73 thirty-day payment terms ICCE preserves externally supplied 30-day term, invoice receipt, dispute, due-date and payment evidence where governed, while keeping worker payroll outside the commercial payment population External term reference, invoice-timing evidence, due-date record, payment-completion reference, worker-payroll boundary statement
Contractual audit and information rights Domain 3 - contractual rights to conduct spot checks ICCE preserves external clause, version, effective date, supplier acknowledgement, evidence request and response status without drafting, interpreting or enforcing contract terms Clause reference, evidence-request record, supplier response, missing-evidence state, contract-rights limitation
Framework, dynamic-market and call-off treatment Domain 4 - frameworks, dynamic markets and call-off responsibility ICCE links evidence to externally governed framework, dynamic-market and call-off references while keeping spot-check responsibility with the awarding authority Framework or call-off reference, authority and supplier attribution, contract-specific evidence state, responsibility boundary
Six-monthly cadence and review scheduling Domain 5 - six-monthly spot-check cadence ICCE preserves contract-award date, review cycle, scheduled check, due date, completion, overdue state and supersession evidence for authority-led spot-check programmes Review schedule, due and completed state, overdue record, evidence pack linkage, audit chronology
Random, targeted and multiple-contract selection Domains 6 and 7 - random and targeted selection; multiple contracts with the same supplier ICCE preserves selection method, risk rationale, supplier-contract population, five-or-25-percent basis, contract-specific sample state and unchecked-contract coverage Selection record, risk reference, contract-population manifest, checked-contract list, coverage statement
Supplier notification and response period Domain 8 - supplier notification and twenty-working-day response ICCE preserves notification issue, receipt, evidence request, deadline, response, clarification, late response, non-response and escalation evidence Notification record, working-day deadline, requested-item checklist, response status, escalation chronology
Thirty-day terms and flow-down evidence Domain 9 - evidence of thirty-day terms and contractual flow-down ICCE stores externally supplied contract terms, clause references, counterparties, effective dates and flow-down evidence, without certifying legal sufficiency or complete chain coverage Contract-term evidence, flow-down coverage record, gap statement, reviewer status, legal-effect limitation
Disputed-invoice procedures Domain 10 - disputed-invoice procedures and communication to sub-contractors ICCE preserves external procedure, version, distribution, acknowledgement, dispute, response, escalation and resolution evidence while keeping commercial procedure adequacy externally judged Procedure reference, communication evidence, acknowledgement record, dispute chronology, remediation record
Contract-specific payment evidence and three-month coverage Domain 11 - contract-specific payment evidence and three-month coverage ICCE supports period, population, invoice-to-payment and completeness controls where a governed commercial-payment profile supplies authoritative public sub-contract data Three-month evidence window, invoice population, payment record linkage, completeness and unsupported-record statement
Invoice range and random sample Domain 12 - time-based invoice range and random sample of at least ten ICCE preserves eligible invoice range, population count, randomisation evidence, sample size, fewer-than-ten exception and selected-invoice manifest where commercial data is supplied Invoice-range manifest, random-sample record, selected-invoice list, sample-size evidence, reproducibility pack
Evidence form and personal-data minimisation Domain 13 - proportionate evidence forms and personal-data exclusion ICCE preserves evidence type, source, redaction, validation, recipient basis and release history while preventing unnecessary worker personal data from entering commercial spot-check packs Evidence manifest, redaction record, validation state, release log, personal-data exclusion statement
Payment timing and outcome calculation Domains 14 and 15 - invoice timing, validity, dispute and payment completion; outcome measures and percentage paid within agreed terms ICCE supports receipt, validity, dispute, due-date, payment-completion, reviewed-invoice count and paid-within-terms calculation where authoritative commercial events are supplied Timing event record, validity and dispute state, payment-completion evidence, percentage result, calculation lineage
Insufficient evidence and non-response Domain 16 - insufficient evidence and supplier non-response ICCE preserves missing, incomplete, inconsistent, clarification-requested, overdue, non-response, unsupported and authority-action states without converting gaps into automatic breach findings Evidence-gap record, clarification request, non-response state, unsupported result, authority decision reference
Non-compliance, remediation and follow-up Domains 17 and 18 - non-compliance response, explanation, remediation, contractual consequence and follow-up checks ICCE preserves affected transactions, supplier explanation, corrective action, owner, deadline, follow-up sample, before-and-after evidence and external closure status Remediation chronology, explanation record, corrective-action tracker, follow-up evidence, external closure reference
Outcome record and publication boundary Domain 19 - outcome record and publication within three months ICCE prepares authority-reviewable evidence summaries, approval state, redaction state, publication due date and external publication reference without authorising public release Outcome summary, evidence manifest, publication deadline, approval and redaction record, publication reference
Complaints and PPRS boundary Domain 20 - Public Procurement Review Service and complaints ICCE preserves external complaint or case references, restricted evidence, communication chronology and external outcome references without operating or determining the complaint process Complaint reference, contract and supplier linkage, restricted evidence log, external finding or closure reference
Payment-regime separation Domain 21 - relationship to PPN 018, sections 68–70 and worker payment ICCE preserves separate source, purpose, population and metric classifications for PPN 021, PPN 018, Procurement Act payment reporting and worker payroll Payment-source classification, no-proxy control, population boundary, unsupported-domain statement

Sources covered

Principal source set

Related context covered

Contract, evidence, sampling, remediation and publication domains covered

Core population boundary covered

Publisher
Augscape Research & Development Limited, trading through the Episodic ICCE documentation surface.

Company number
12996074

Website
episodic.co.uk

Document status
Public alignment statement · 2.1

Publication date
10 July 2026

Use boundary
General information only. Not legal, tax, financial, insurance, employment or investment advice.