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Public alignment statement

Fair Payment Code

Episodic ICCE recognises the Fair Payment Code as a UK Government-backed, voluntary organisation-level Award scheme for fair supplier payment. The Code sets expectations for supplier-invoice payment performance, clear and fair payment terms, prompt communication where payment may be delayed, late-payment consequences, disputed-invoice handling, supplier references, complaints, Improvement Plans, Award renewal and public Award-status discipline.

Those expectations are practical and evidence-led. For temporary labour activity, they create a need to preserve clear boundaries between worker payroll and commercial supplier-invoice payment; between ICCE-routed labour-chain evidence and applicant-company accounts-payable evidence; and between payment metrics, supplier references, complaint evidence, Improvement Plans and the external Award decision. ICCE worker wages, payroll funding, statutory employer costs, worker payment instructions, agency payroll-related transfers, platform fees and payroll reconciliation are not substitutes for the applicant company’s qualifying UK supplier-invoice population.

ICCE aligns with those expectations as a Collaborative Procurement-Support Provider for ICCE-routed temporary-labour activity. It supports authorised applicant-company, procurement, supplier, contract-management, responsible-procurement and assurance stakeholders by preserving controlled worker-payment, economic-layer, counterparty, contract-reference, exception, dispute, remediation, action, external-status and audit evidence. Formal Fair Payment Code payment metrics would require a separately governed commercial-payment profile containing the applicant legal entity, qualifying UK suppliers, supplier-size classifications, supplier invoices, invoice receipt events, payment-completion events, disputes, undisputed amounts, references, statutory reporting links, Improvement Plans, complaints and external Award status. ICCE does not determine applicant eligibility, submit applications, issue supplier references, verify payment performance, conduct spot checks, investigate complaints, approve Improvement Plans, issue Awards, remove Awards, licence Award logos or decide Bronze, Silver or Gold status.

Episodic maintains a continued alignment commitment by reviewing this statement where the Fair Payment Code, Award tiers, payment percentages, supplier-size threshold, evidence-period rules, complaint process, Improvement Plan treatment, directory status, Payment Practices Reporting relationship, public-procurement payment context, 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
Scheme identity, applicant status and Award authority Domains 1, 2 and 3 - scheme identity, voluntary Award status, administration, applicant eligibility, legal-entity scope, Award-tier selection and lower-tier consideration ICCE preserves external scheme, applicant, administrator, eligibility, requested tier, assessed tier, awarded tier and status references while preventing transfer of Award status to ICCE or other parties Scheme-status record, applicant legal-entity reference, requested and awarded tier record, lower-tier or Improvement Plan reference, no-Award statement
Supplier-invoice population and payroll boundary Domain 4 - supplier and invoice population ICCE preserves that Fair Payment Code metrics require the applicant’s qualifying UK supplier-invoice population and blocks use of worker payroll, payroll funding, worker payment or platform-fee records as substitutes Supplier-invoice population requirement, no-payroll-proxy control, applicant-wide scope statement, unsupported commercial-data record
Bronze Award evidence Domain 5 - Bronze Award payment-performance threshold ICCE supports Bronze evidence only where a future governed commercial-payment profile holds the complete qualifying invoice population and authoritative receipt and payment-completion events Bronze threshold reference, qualifying invoice count, 60-day result, six-month period evidence, calculation lineage
Silver Award evidence Domain 6 - Silver Award payment-performance thresholds ICCE supports Silver evidence only where supplier-size classification and complete invoice-payment data are externally governed for the relevant period Small-supplier classification, larger-supplier classification, 30-day and 60-day result records, classification source and date, calculation lineage
Gold Award evidence Domain 7 - Gold Award payment-performance threshold ICCE supports Gold evidence only where the complete applicant-wide UK supplier-invoice population and 30-day payment evidence are governed and reproducible Gold threshold reference, all-UK-supplier invoice population, 30-day result, six-month evidence window, no-Gold-Award statement
Evidence period, receipt event and reproducibility Domain 8 - minimum evidence period, invoice receipt, payment completion and calculation reproducibility ICCE preserves period locking, invoice receipt, payment completion, source manifest, calculation version, correction and supersession evidence where authoritative commercial data is supplied Six-month period record, receipt event, payment-completion evidence, source manifest, recalculation and supersession history
Clear payment terms Domain 9 - Clear principle: written and understood payment terms ICCE preserves externally authored contract, payment-term, version, issue, acknowledgement and review evidence without drafting terms or deciding fairness, understanding or legal effect Contract-term reference, supplier acknowledgement, version record, review status, fairness and legal-effect limitation
Prompt delay communication Domain 10 - Clear principle: prompt communication of payment delay ICCE preserves delay-risk, overdue, notification, delivery, response, escalation and correction evidence where commercial invoice data and communication authority are governed Delay exception, authorised supplier notification, reason and expected-date record, response chronology, remediation evidence
Fair payment within Code and agreed terms Domain 11 - Fair principle: payment within Code terms and mutually agreed timeframes ICCE distinguishes Code threshold, contractual due date, receipt event, payment-completion event, exception and correction evidence while keeping negotiation fairness external Contractual-term record, Code-threshold comparison, within-term result, exception explanation, correction lineage
Late-payment interest and compensation Domain 12 - Fair principle: late-payment interest and compensation ICCE preserves external interest-clause, statutory-interest, delayed-invoice, principal, calculation, payment and remediation references without determining legal entitlement Interest-clause reference, late-payment record, authorised calculation reference, compensation-payment evidence, legal-boundary statement
Disputed invoices and undisputed portions Domain 13 - Fair principle: disputed invoices and payment of undisputed portions ICCE preserves dispute status, disputed and undisputed amount, response, escalation, resolution, payment and correction evidence under a governed commercial-payment profile Dispute record, portion separation, undisputed-payment evidence, resolution chronology, correction record
Conflict avoidance and collaborative resolution Domain 14 - Collaborative principle: conflict avoidance and early resolution ICCE reduces factual ambiguity through common evidence, early exceptions, issue chronology and remediation records while keeping collaborative behaviour and resolution authority external Common transaction evidence, early exception visibility, external conflict-avoidance reference, escalation and resolution chronology
Sharing and promoting fair-payment practice Domain 15 - Collaborative principle: sharing and promoting fair-payment practice ICCE preserves approved aggregated evidence, case-study inputs, improvement history, release controls and confidentiality boundaries for externally led fair-payment learning Aggregated evidence record, case-study reference, improvement evidence, release and confidentiality log
Supplier references and small-supplier evidence Domain 16 - supply-chain references and small-supplier evidence ICCE preserves external supplier-reference, referee, supplier relationship, consent, scope and employee-count classification evidence without creating or validating the referee’s opinion Supplier-reference register, small-supplier classification, consent record, validation status, referee boundary statement
Payment Practices Reporting separation Domain 17 - Payment Practices Reporting data and statutory-reporting separation ICCE preserves externally published statutory payment-practice data, legal-entity matching, reporting-period matching, discrepancies and clarification evidence while keeping statutory reporting distinct from Award status External reporting reference, retrieval date, entity and period match, discrepancy log, statutory-versus-Award classification
Application review, verification and spot checks Domain 18 - application review, verification, evidence gaps and spot checking ICCE provides audit-ready application evidence, source manifests, metric lineage, clarification records, gap states and external spot-check references without performing scheme verification Application evidence manifest, clarification workflow, spot-check request and response record, external decision reference
Complaints, engagement and Award removal boundary Domain 19 - complaints, engagement, anti-retaliation and Award removal ICCE preserves restricted complaint, affected supplier, affected invoice, response, evidence, external finding, remediation and Award-status references without investigating or deciding the complaint Restricted complaint record, affected-transaction linkage, response chronology, external finding reference, anti-retaliation boundary
Improvement Plans and movement between tiers Domain 20 - Improvement Plans, performance recovery and movement between tiers ICCE preserves current tier, target tier, root cause, action, owner, deadline, evidence, metric progress, exception and external closure references Improvement Plan record, action tracker, progress evidence, exception record, external closure reference
Award duration, renewal, directory and logo controls Domain 21 - Award duration, reapplication, validity, directory status and logo use ICCE preserves external Award tier, issue, expiry, renewal, directory, logo permission, status, lapse, removal and supersession evidence without renewing or displaying status beyond authority Award-status register, renewal schedule, directory reference, logo-use permission, lapsed or removed status
Public-procurement payment and worker-payroll separation Domain 22 - relationship to PPN 018, PPN 021, public-sector payment rules and ICCE worker payroll ICCE preserves separate source, purpose, applicant, population and metric classifications for Fair Payment Code, PPN 018, PPN 021, Procurement Act payment provisions and worker payroll Payment-source classification, no-status-transfer control, PPN cross-reference, worker-payroll boundary, unsupported-domain statement

Sources covered

Principal source set

Award structure covered

Fair-payment principle groups covered

Detailed alignment domains covered

Related public-procurement and payment context 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.