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ACE News

04 DEC 2018

CREATING A RESPONSIBLE PAYMENT CULTURE

ACE highlights continuing poor practices in BEIS consultation

Following extensive engagement with ACE members, we have responded to BEIS’ consultation on responsible payment. 

Our response was compiled thanks to the input of members who completed a survey and we also added information from our annual benchmarking project.

A long-standing issue for many in the industry, the benchmarking study suggests that responsible payment practices currently remains an aspiration, rather than a reality:

  • The consultants surveyed spent as much time chasing late payments as they did bidding for new work in 2017/18.
  • The average debtors’ days were 75.4 days
  • In one particular case, 80% of an SME’s revenue was paid late outside contract terms.

While government has made plenty of positive noises in this space, we are still far from seeing this translated in to a more responsible payment culture. 

ACE’s Legal and Commercial forum supports our members in this space, leading our recent work engaging with the Prompt Payment Compliance Board and co-ordinating this response to the BEIS consultation.

The group will produce a report on fair-contracting and procurement in 2019 as part of ACE’s Future of Consultancy campaign.

The full ACE response, including a breakdown of individual results to our survey questions, can be downloaded below.

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Response: Creating a responsible payment culture

November 2018

BEIS consultation on good payment practice

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