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Police Foi Business

Police investigated by business forum over late payment practices

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

July 8, 2010 | 2 min read

The Forum of Private Business, a small business support group, is to publish a late payment “Hall of Shame” of UK police forces this July.

The list will be compiled following submission of a series of Freedom of Information Act requests to each of Britain’s 52 forces together with the British Transport Police.

These requests are designed to establish how quickly each force pays its suppliers and whether or not they are adhering to central government directives which stipulate that public sector organisations pay contractors and suppliers within 10 days.

The Forum believes contracts for goods and services with the police are worth around £1.6bn annually with a significant proportion of that work carried out by small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s).

Forum spokesperson Phil McCabe said: “Our members frequently cite late payment as one of the main problems facing their businesses. Many well-managed and viable businesses go to the wall simply because they are forced to wait too long for payments, especially in the credit-starved conditions we have seen over the past two-and-a-half years.

“This is obviously disastrous for them but we firmly believe it also damages the wider economy too, as it removes choice from the business-to-business marketplace and effectively creates a monopoly for the few firms with the cash reserves to stomach long waits for payment.”

A prior Forum investigation had looked at computer manufacturer Dell after the company extended its supplier payment time by 15 days, prompting the group to add the the manufacturer to their list of slothful payers.

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