About us

The Office of the Small Business Commissioner (OSBC) is an independent public body set up by Government under the Enterprise Act 2016 to tackle late payment and unfavourable payment practices in the private sector. The OSBC covers the whole of the UK - England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

We’re here to help you as a small business (with fewer than 50 employees), resolve any payment disputes you have with your bigger customers (with more than 50 employees), for free.

The OSBC is an independent public body set up by Government under the Enterprise Act 2016 to tackle late payment and unfavourable payment practices in the private sector.

We cover the whole of the UK. Our Remit is to consider complaints from small businesses (that is businesses with fewer than 50 staff) about payment problems they have with their larger business customers (with 50 or more employees) and make non-binding recommendations on how the parties should resolve their disputes.

The late payment culture that exists between businesses in the UK means that:

  • a third of payments to small businesses are late
  • the average value of each overdue payment is £6,142
  • a fifth of small businesses have run into cash flow problems due to late payments
  • if small businesses were paid on time, this could boost the economy by several billion pounds a year.

We want to empower small businesses to resolve disputes around unfair payment practices themselves if they prefer us not to intervene. We provide information and support on how to take action if a payment is overdue. Our information also covers matters such as:

  • resolving disputes and dealing with an unpaid invoice
  • checking contracts and getting invoices right
  • alternative support and dispute resolution services.

Alternatively small businesses can give our complaints handling team all the details and we can investigate on your behalf.

Raise your complaint with us directly here.

The OSBC has the power to publish a report of an investigation into, consideration and determination of a complaint, and is:

  • impartial
  • free to use on a non-risk basis
  • independent, but appointed by government.

The Office of the Small Business Commissioner (OSBC) also administers the Prompt Payment Code. We help bigger firms that want to commit to paying their smaller suppliers quicker and fairly, improve their payment processes and reach the level at which they can become signatories to the Code.