UK Business: Cabinet Office stands up for prompt payment for SMEs
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The latest “Mystery Shopper” cases reveal three new cases where payment issues for SMEs have been successfully resolved, Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, announced today.
The cases have been published as part of the Cabinet Office’s SME Mystery Shopper scheme, which allows the Cabinet Office to investigate procurement issues on behalf of SMEs and recommend improvements to the procurement process. The results of these investigations are then published online to promote best practice across the whole public sector.
The successes involving payment are:
An SME working on a contract for NHS North West London hospitals which raised concerns about payment made purely on a “contingency fee” basis. This meant payment would take longer than usual and would be made on an erratic basis. As a small business they would not have the resources to wait several months, so contacted Mystery Shopper. The Cabinet Office intervened and the NHS trust has since reviewed its approach and plans to introduce a new fee system where contingency fees play a smaller role.
Despite HMRC paying its prime contractor on time, a small business in the supply chain complained that this wasn’t being passed down. Francis Maude wrote to the local MP warning that the
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