In March the first company to be named and shamed by the Small Business Commissioner Paul Uppal over late payment to a SME was announced.
The Office of the Small Business Commissioner launched an official investigation into the payment practices of the Jordans & Ryvita Company.
Using his new powers for naming offenders the Commissioner investigated Jordans & Ryvita on behalf of small business Magellan Design Ltd, which was owed approximately £5,000. As a result, the money was paid together with a further £1,400 in late payment interest.
This week the results of a second investigation, this time into health food retailer Holland & Barrett, were revealed. It was launched after a complaint from an IT company, which had asked not to be named, over an unpaid invoice of £15,000. The invoice took 67 days to be paid, well outside the company’s contractual agreement of 30 days.
Mr Uppal found that Holland & Barrett had “a purposeful culture of poor payment practices”, in which 60% of invoices were not paid within agreed terms and payment took an average of 68 days. He also condemned the retailer for not cooperating with his investigation, saying: “Holland & Barrett’s refusal to co-operate with my investigation, as well as their published poor payment practices says to me that this is a company that doesn’t care about its suppliers or take prompt payment seriously”.
Since the inception of the Prompt Payment Code and Mr Uppal’s appointment in December 2017 his office has released £3.5 million in late payments for small businesses and attracted 50,000 visitors to its website.
The effects of late payment to SMEs by large businesses can be catastrophic
The FSB (Federation of Small Businesses) has estimated that 50,000 SMEs each year close because of late payments and in July last year published research showing that 17 per cent of smaller suppliers were paid more than 60 days after providing an invoice, while close to one in five smaller suppliers are paid late more than half the time by the public sector.
While the latest results are a welcome development I would argue that until Mr Uppal is given powers to fine offenders they are unlikely to take this initiative seriously despite his efforts, for which some credit is due.
The Government’s Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee has also repeated its call for Small Business Commissioner to be given the power to fine companies that pay late and for there to be a legal requirement to force them to pay invoices within 30 days.
I urge all SMEs to report late payment by large clients and especially well-known names so that more are named and shamed as a way of humiliating them into paying on time.