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Government pulls funding for late payment advice site

With quite ironic timing, it appears that Government funding has ended for a well-known late payment advice site, the Better Payment Practice Group.

The organisation was initially set up to encourage businesses to improve their payment practices.

According to BusinessZone.co.uk, funding for the BPPG site ended on Thursday 31st July. The current advice provided by the site will be transferred to the Business Link portal.

The Better Payment Practice Group was established to promote a "better payment culture within the UK and urges all firms to adopt a responsible attitude to paying on time."

Given the current economic uncertainly, this news could not be less welcome. Only last month, we reported that a recent survey found that 82% of businesses are seeing an increase in the number of customers that are paying late. And with 83% of businesses stating that late payment will have either ‘serious' or ‘very serious' consequences for their businesses, the problem could be severe.

In further news, the FSB reported that big organisations are unashamedly making small firms wait over 100 days before getting paid, often changing payment terms with little notice.

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Posted August 7, 2008

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