Making Business Better: Get Paid on Time

Late payment is a major problem for businesses – the average late payment owed to a Scottish firm is £5718. That’s why FSB campaigns for better payment practices in both the public and private sectors across Scotland. 

In our recent procurement report, Broken Contracts: Smaller businesses and Scottish procurement, we called for the Scottish Government to require evidence of good payment practice from those bidding for major contracts and to encourage large firms to assign responsibility for payment practices and supplier relationships to a non-executive director. We also recommended that the government:

• Issue stronger guidance to the public sector on monitoring and enforcing requirements of supply chain payment practices
• Ensure invoices that are paid after 30 days have interest added automatically 

We also persuaded the Scottish Government to include prompt payment to the list of good business practices required by those signing up to the Scottish Business Pledge. Businesses who sign up to the pledge can commit paying their bills promptly. 

We received a lot of interest in the Fair Pay, Fair Play campaign from FSB members and politicians in Wales.  

Several members were keen to record videos or to post on social media, as they said that this was a major issue for them. FSB in North Wales discussed the campaign with politicians from all major parties, including LLŷr Griffith AM (Plaid Cymru), Albert Owen MP (Labour), Rhun ap Iorwerth AM (Plaid Cymru) and Mark Isherwood AM (Conservative). In South Wales, we held conversations with a number of politicians including Stephen Crabb MP (Conservative) and Chair of the National Assembly Cross-Party Group on SMEs, Dr. Hefin David AM (Labour, pictured) In addition, we raised the issue with the Police and Crime Commissioner, who was particularly interested to hear that North Wales Police had a poor record of paying on time. FSB also engaged with Welsh Government on the issue, reinforcing the need for prompt payment to be a part of any discussion about reforming procurement in Wales.

FSB’s campaign was a good opportunity to raise this under-discussed and under-appreciated topic among decision makers in Wales and give our members their voice on the issue.

At last year’s Balmoral Show, FSB Northern Ireland partnered with the Financial Ombudsman to launch their expanded Small Business Service, which is free to use. During the Show, we engaged with small business owners to raise awareness of the Service. We also published a video on twitter and got significant press coverage in the media. This partnership has opened up an available route for members to seek redress when they have been mistreated financially.

FSB NI also secured pledges from Political leaders from across the spectrum to get behind the ‘Fair Pay, Fair Play’ campaign. This included the DUP Leader and First Minister, Arlene Foster MLA, the Alliance Party Deputy Leader, Stephen Farry MP, UUP Leader, Steve Aiken MLA, SDLP Leader, Colum Eastwood MP, and Sinn Fein MP Órfhlaith Begley.

FSB’s 2016 Prompt Payment Report analysed the payment practices of Northern Ireland’s 11 local councils and called for improvement and more transparency. While some improvements have been made, we will soon be publishing an updated version, where we will once again highlight where local government must do better.