Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Survey Highlights the public sector lags behind in payments

LOCAL councils will be asked to come clean about how long they take to pay small business suppliers. Forum of Private Business (FPB) filed a Freedom of Information Act request to the local council in the UK to ask a typical payment. Small business support organizations at last made the same exercise in 2009 when finding a postcode lottery time payment of local government. In a recent report, it was found that the board takes an average of 19 days to pay the bill - almost double the 10-day target set by the Government. More than four in 10 (42%) are not paid within 10 days, but regional variations mean that this figure is as high as 52% in some areas and as low as 11% in others. FPB senior policy advisor, McCabe Phil, said: "The public sector is the real issue final payment is where the local government is concerned, from whom many large contracts to small companies. "According to our previous freedom of information research, there has been a real postcode lottery when it is in the suppliers are paid on time - it will be interesting to see if things have improved or, given that we are back on level of the recession and the overall late payment appears to be increasing, it will be worse. ' He said that, while it is important to pay the government, it is also important that local authorities set a good example for the private sector to follow. Contract public sector is currently providing around £ 70bn of business for the private sector and the FPB calls for a change in the public procurement process, thus promoting better payment practices. This shows that the tendering process should include pre-qualification questionnaires (PQQs) payment. A recent survey with the credit agency Graydon FPB and found that one in five public sector considered a poor payer. More than half of 500 small with business owners who asked for the report said that the delay in payment is a matter for them, while nearly quarter has been identified as a serious problem. It also shows the domino effect of late payment in 56% of those not paid on time is not to pay their own suppliers. And 45% said their income is eroded by delays in payment. The survey also found that 65% of those questioned saw customers extend payment terms without notice or consultation, while one-quarter of customers withhold final payment without the approval of the first to assess the quality of work .

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