UK Offence Report

Failure to publish a report

regulation 8(1) of The Reporting on Payment Practices and Performance Regulations 2017

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

1 If the requirements of regulation

3 are not met in relation to

a reporting period, the qualifying company and every person who was

a director of the qualifying company immediately before the end of the filing period commits an offence.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach regulation 8(1)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. On these words an offence is committed where a person was a director of the qualifying company immediately before the end of the filing period.
  2. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Reporting on Payment Practices and Performance Regulations 2017.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
Unlimited
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

level 5 is unlimited in England and Wales for offences committed on or after 12 March 2015 (LASPO 2012 s.85, S.I. 2015/664).

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
15 March 2017
In force from
6 April 2017
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations require a company to which the Regulations apply to publish certain information about the company’s payment practices and policies and its performance by reference to those practices and policies. Regulation 1(3) provides that these Regulations are to cease to have effect on 6th April 2024. Regulation 2 sets out the definitions used in the Regulations. Regulation 3 imposes a duty on a qualifying company to publish, for each reporting period, information on its payment practices and policies in relation to qualifying contracts and its performance in relation to those practices and policies. The Schedule sets out the information that is required in relation to each reporting period. The information must be published on a web-based service provided by or on behalf of the Secretary of State. Regulation 4 provides that the information must be approved by a director of the qualifying company. Regulation 5 defines which companies are qualifying companies. A company will be a qualifying company in relation to a financial year, if on the balance sheet dates for the two preceding financial years it exceeded certain thresholds in the Companies Act 2006 for medium-sized companies. Regulation 6 defines which contracts are qualifying contracts. To be a qualifying contract, a relevant contract must not be for financial services, and must be governed by the law of a part of the United Kingdom other than by choice of the parties, or otherwise have a significant connection with the United Kingdom. A relevant contract is defined in section 3(2) of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 – this is a contract for goods, services or intangible assets, made in connection with carrying on a business. Regulation 7 determines the reporting periods for which a qualifying company must publish information. Generally there are two reporting periods per financial year. Regulation 7 provides for one or three reporting periods in a financial year if a company shortens or extends its accounting reference period under section 392 of the Companies Act 2006, so that a financial year lasts for 9 months or less, or for more than 15 months. Failure to publish the information required, or publication of false or misleading information, is a criminal offence under regulations 8 and 9. Regulation 10 extends the time limit within which an offence under these Regulations can be prosecuted. Regulation 11 requires the Secretary of State to review the operation and effect of these Regulations and publish a report within five years of the Regulations coming into force. Following the review it will fall to the Secretary of State to consider whether the Regulations should be allowed to expire as regulation 1(3) provides, be revoked early, or continue in force with or without amendment. A further instrument would be needed to continue the Regulations in force with or without amendments or to revoke them early. A full impact assessment of the effect that this instrument will have on the costs to business and the voluntary sector is available from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy at 1 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0ET and is published with an Explanatory Memorandum alongside the instrument on www.legislation.gov.uk.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

Other offences in the same instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person “commits an offence”
Confidence
0.92 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source