Throughout the recession, the previous administration spoke on a number of occasions about the culture of late payment which was jeopardizing enterprise in g the UK and overall economic performance.
As a result the government introduced the ‘Late Payment Charter’ which encouraged business to commit to paying their suppliers on time. However, on the whole, feedback from the SME sector was largely negative; they felt it failed to address the problem properly and that more needed to be done to protect small businesses and recently formed companies from business that didn’t pay.
A year on from the ‘Late Payment Charter’ is seems that little progress has been made; over sixty per cent of businesses feel that late payment poses a serious threat to their company’s future , while over thirty per cent say that they feel they spend a larger proportion of their time chasing payment.
Yet, a recent report from credit agency J.P Partners reveals that more and more companies are failing to chase bad debt as they feel they may compromise their business relationships and future work.