Late Payments

Following the London Assembly Economy Committee's investigation into the effect of late payments on London’s small businesses and the self-employed, it has written to the Mayor of London with 4 recommendations.

The recommendations include:

1. The Government should publish a statutory definition of when a payment is late, allowing for a consistent measurement of payment delays. This should set out a clear and consistent starting point from which payment times are to be measured. The Mayor should lobby the Government to implement this.
2. Given that the Government has committed to broaden the powers of the Office of the Small Business Commissioner, the Mayor should lobby the Government to equip the Commissioner with the powers to proactively investigate companies with poor payment practices and to provide the Commissioner with the resources to do so.
3. The Mayor should use his public communications channels to raise the profile of the issue of late payments. This should involve signposting businesses to a comprehensive list of resources, including resources provided by the Office of the Small Business Commissioner and the Mayor’s own ‘Grow London Local’ platform. In his response to this letter, the Mayor should outline his plans to inform London’s small businesses of the support available under his recently-launched ’Grow London Local’ platform, particularly in relation to negotiating contracts and payment terms.
4. The Mayor and the GLA Group should work with the Small Business Commissioner to ensure the GLA and the wider GLA Group meet their internal performance target of paying 90 per cent of all invoices from small businesses within 10 days. In his response to this letter, the Mayor should explain what action he is taking to ensure small businesses understand how to correctly issue an invoice to the GLA Group. He should further outline timescales for when he expects to meet the above-mentioned target.