Council glitch means suppliers and contractors are owed a small fortune in Milton Keynes

A new payment system introduced by MK Council has resulted in potentially millions of pounds being owed to their contractors and suppliers, the Citizen can reveal
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The council switched in April to a national scheme called Tradeshift.

But since then many contractors have not received a single penny.

“It’s ridiculous... I’m owed tens of thousands of pounds now. It’s enough to send a small business bankrupt,” said one.

milton keynes signmilton keynes sign
milton keynes sign

“I keep calling the council and they keep blaming Tradeshift. The problem is just not being resolved.”

It is understood dozens of suppliers and contractors are making the same complaint – and the outstanding invoices total millions of pounds.

Tradeshift was introduced under the LGSS partnership MK Council has with Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire county councils.

The public sector shared services venture covers areas including finance, human resources, IT services, payroll and procurement.

This week the Cabinet member for resources, Councillor Rob Middleton, apologised to all suppliers and contractors affected.

He said: “We have recently transferred our invoice processing to a new payment system. We are aware of a few problems this is causing to our suppliers and we have challenged our service provider, LGSS, to ensure we iron out these issues.”

He added: “I am very sorry to all our suppliers for the inconvenience this has caused, it is not what we would expect at all.”

Tradeshift is a free invoicing platform and web based business network. The software is used in more than 190 countries.

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