Public bodies are taking no action to ensure that supply chain contractors are paid within 30 days, a report by the Specialist Engineering Contractors' Group Scotland has found.

Using Freedom of Information requests, the group found all Scottish public bodies pay their tier 1 suppliers within 30 days but the only impact was to "enhance the working capital of tier 1 contractors". Public bodies did not appear to apply sanctions against suppliers with a record of poor payment performance. It also found that at any one time £120 million cash retentions are owed by the public sector to construction firms, and 60per cent of the agencies use it as working capital.