ECH22077 - Contract Settlements: SAFE - Locking Payments on Account

Procedures for Locking a POA

The SAFE “clearing lock” must only be set where:

• the SAFE customer account contains an unpaid charge, or
• the settlement includes time barred NIC liabilities.

When a POA is received you must

• ask the SAFE nominee to view the customer’s SAFE account to ensure there are no unpaid charges.

Where there are none you should

• send the POA with the SAFE payslip to the Accounts Office Shipley in the usual way.

Where the SAFE nominee identifies an unpaid charge which is due for payment before the settlement charge you must:

• send the POA with the SAFE payslip to Accounts Office Shipley in the usual way
• complete the attached stencil and send this separately to the SAFE team. It is recommended that the stencil is deferred 48 hours to allow for the payment to be processed.

On receipt of a completed stencil the SAFE team will lock the payment. If the stencil is incomplete and the SAFE team cannot identify why a request has been made to lock the payment the stencil will be return to you unactioned.

The SAFE team will not deal with any telephone requests to set the clearing lock.

Each POA should be considered separately and a stencil issued for each POA as appropriate.