UK Government Prompt Payment Performance for Invoices, Quarterly 2015 Onwards

UK government data on the prompt payment of invoices by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and its predecessor departments. The dataset contains quarterly reports on the percentage of invoices paid within 5 days and within 30 days, as required for all central government departments from April 2015. It is published by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office under the Open Government Licence.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in government payment performance based on quarterly reporting periods.
• Benchmark departmental payment speed based on the reported 5-day and 30-day payment percentages.
• Study the impact of departmental mergers on administrative processes based on the FCO and DFID merger mentioned.

Strengths

• Quarterly reporting provides regular data points for time-series analysis.
• Data collection is mandated by a government-wide policy effective from 1 April 2015.
• Published under the OGL-UK-3.0 license, allowing for reuse.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)

Collection Method

Mandatory quarterly reporting by UK central government departments.

Time Range

From Q2 2015 onwards (post April 2015 mandate).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:30:50.802031; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United Kingdom (specifically UK government departments).