Note to suppliers

Publication of Intellectual Property Office financial data

This is to make you aware of the Government’s Transparency Initiative.

The Initiative is intended to improve the transparency of how public funds are used - the Number 10 statement on transparency External Link will give you more information.

Financial Data

You will note that we are required to publish all items of spend over £25,000 from November 2010. All Government Departments have agreed that this should be backdated to 1 April 2010. We have also been asked to consider publishing all payables data as soon as possible and we have therefore decided to publish all payments which are made to suppliers. Reimbursement of expenses to staff will be published but individuals will not be identified.

Payments made from April to September 2010 will be published by the end of October 2010: thereafter data will be published on a monthly basis.

The information published will be limited to the area of the Office which incurred the cost, the type of spend, the supplier name and VAT registration number if we record it, the amount and the payment date.

To fulfil the spirit of the Transparency Initiative our presumption is that all data should be published. There are, however, a few circumstances where we should not release the information. To make judgements on the type of data we withhold we will use the guidance currently in use for the Freedom of Information Act as a frame of reference.

The following are example scenarios under which we would not publish information:

  • Salary payments to staff (including bonuses)
  • Compensation and settlements made to individuals
  • Payments considered commercially sensitive (bearing in mind that the data considered here does not reflect contract prices).

Detailed guidance on Freedom of Information criteria External Link is available from the Information Commissioner's Office External Link.

If you believe that any of your business with the Office should be exempt from the Transparency Initiative please either contact your Departmental lead for the specific business, or e-mail us.