We are delighted to welcome Small Business Commissioner Emma Jones CBE as a new monthly columnist on SMEWeb. Emma’s role is running the independent public body that tackles late payments and unfair payment practices. In her first column, she outlines more details about what Office of the Small Business Commissioner does and how it can help your small business.
The Office of the Small Business Commissioner (OSBC) was created in 2017 with a clear focus to support small firms with getting paid on time. The Office continues on that mission today.
I started in role as the fourth Commissioner at the end of June and am working at pace with the team to make life easier for small firms with a focus on getting money moving round the economy.
As a former founder myself, I know too well the thankless task of chasing late invoices and we want to free up time and cash so business owners can instead spend precious resource on going for growth.
How are we delivering this? Through a number of routes. We see a clear link between small firms that adopt digital technologies, getting paid faster, so we are working with e-commerce marketplaces and payment providers on ensuring digitally traded and trusted firms get paid without delay, whilst looking at how we leverage the UK’s lead position in Open Finance to speed up money flows.
On this, we are working with the Centre for Finance, Innovation & Technology and have hosted a workshop with banks, accounting providers, data holders etc to explore connecting data so we can reduce friction when it comes to invoices being disputed or not getting paid.
To celebrate and showcase success, we manage the Fair Payment Code which accepts applications from businesses of all sizes and offers awards (bronze, silver, gold) based on payment terms and times with gold winners being able to show they pay 95% of invoices in 30 days. Almost 400 businesses are on the Code and we are working to boost that figure yet further.
For businesses having issues getting paid, we have a casework team who will investigate cases against large companies (those with 50+ employees) and work to reclaim monies owed on your behalf.
A public consultation is currently open looking at potential new measures such as setting maximum payment terms across the UK, applying mandatory interest on late invoices, and looking at the use of retention payments in the construction sector. These measures, when in law, would see companies that repeatedly pay late being fined and penalised.
All this work is communicated to small businesses via trade bodies, at events, and through media channels like this one so you know where to go with a payment issue, how to celebrate your own record in paying suppliers on time, and how to access content on contracting well to get paid on time. Indeed, this will be the topic of my next column!
At the end of each week we produce a newsletter to keep small businesses and stakeholders updated on progress and developments and to introduce the work of other government departments. I hope you will subscribe and I look forward to contributing each month here on SMEWeb in a way that is helpful for your business.
Look out for Emma Jones’ monthly column every month on SMEWeb.