EOW Reflections: Looking back……
When I started in the role of the Small Business Commissioner on 1st July 2021 4 years seemed an inordinate length of time to contemplate doing one job. I’d been working freelance or running my own business, or doing both, for most of my career and was used to working across several different projects at the same time. Now I’m stunned at the rapidity with which the four years has passed. I’m seeing the time out of the rear-view mirror.
On 1st July 2021 we were in the second year of the pandemic. Things were locked down, opened up and locked down again. The team members were working from home, the SBC office was moved into a new building without us being there, and the number of webinars about payment practices we took part in was phenomenal. People applied for new jobs and got them but recruitment freezes left us with roles we weren’t allowed to fill.
Then in February 2022 Russia’s action against Ukraine led to the world’s oil prices soaring. A special team was set up in the then Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Department (BEIS) and several members of our Sponsorship team at BEIS moved over to work on getting help to people who couldn’t pay the increased energy prices. That left us to get on with getting on until new Sponsorship team people were appointed. I think they’d agree that they came in knowing little about the world of payment practices and disputes.
There followed our three-year review. This is a statutory requirement. That review could have recommended our closure so while it was going on it made no sense to recruit. This review was folded into the Payments and Cashflow Review which was published in November 2023. The recommendation was that the Office of the Small Business Commissioner (OSBC) should continue and there should be a subsequent consultation on giving us additional powers.
In the meantime BEIS was split into three new Government Departments, of Innovation and Skills, Energy Security and Net Zero, and Business and Trade. We now sit in the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). With a new home Department and the Review completed we were supported by our Sponsorship team (thankfully the same people as previously in BEIS) to start rebuilding the team to the 14 people we have today. It’s amazing how many of the things you want to achieve you can put into play once you have the right people in the right roles.
Over the past two years we’ve built the team, got the go ahead to replace the Prompt Payment Code with the new and much more aspirational Fair Payment Code (FPC) where we can ask for evidence of good payment practices and expect compliance with fairer payment terms in contracts. We’ve also commissioned, with DBT, research into the extent and impact of overdue invoices and extended payment terms in contracts on business and the economy which we hope will be published soon. We’ve published a guide to Creating a Good Contract because we realised many firms operate without anything in writing which leads to disputes. We’ve worked with DBT to create the consultation into the additional powers for the Office of the Small Business Commissioner (OSBC) recommended in the Payments and Cashflow Review. We hope this will also be launched soon.
With a full complement of people we have a full communications team so we can do much more work on raising the awareness of the free dispute resolution service we provide for small suppliers in dispute with bigger customers, of the FPC and how to win an award, and engage more widely with businesses of all sizes and with organisations that can help us spread the word. The Code has its own team now to deal with applications and help firms reach the right standard to achieve an award. The Casework team is building more useful content for people coming to us with complaints and enquiries. The business team has effective and efficient processes in place to deal with all aspects of the business including the massive National Audit Office (NAO) audit they have to undertake each year and the requirement to produce an annual report and accounts.
We’ve survived 5 Small Business Ministers and Secretaries of State, 4 Prime Ministers, 3 Cabinet Office recruitment freezes, two political parties in power and one pandemic. We’re here and stronger than ever and constantly pushing the message that customers need to pay quicker so that suppliers and supply chains are more sustainable and resilient and have the confidence to invest, increase productivity and grow.
Thanks to all the people I’ve worked with in the past 4 years, in the wonderful OSBC, in the DBT Sponsorship team and the BEIS team before them, in the hugely supportive business organisations around the UK, and in the many businesses, from the largest which have really stepped up to the plate on improving payment practices and those working hard to get an FPC Award, to the smallest micros which struggle to survive when not paid on time but are essential to the UK economy.
I may be leaving the OSBC, but I will still be working for better outcomes for micro and small businesses, supporting business of all sizes and hailing the work of the new SBC coming in to build onwards from where we’ve got to. My heartfelt thanks to you all. It’s been a joy.