CM magazine May 2018

EDITOR’S COLUMN
More band-wagon jumpers
than a John Wayne Western
Sean Feast
Managing Editor
THERE has been a great deal
of noise in the news recently
(indeed does it ever go
away?) about the issue of late
payment. What strikes me
most is that there are more
band-wagon jumpers than a John Wayne
Western.
Wearing a PR hat, perhaps I can’t blame
them. Arguably I would be advising the
same, especially if I were representing a
cashflow solutions provider and needed
to sell product, or a business organisation
that needed to flex its muscles to show its
members how strong it was. I don’t mind
any of it, but I do mind when they get their
facts wrong or make swingeing statements
without proper research.
The easy target for unwanted attention,
like the chap with National Health glasses
in the playground, is the Prompt Payment
Code (PPC). Headlines that scream that
the Code isn’t working or worse, that it has
failed, fail in themselves to understand
what the Code was for and what is has
achieved thus far.
One of its principal objectives was to
bring late payment to the fore as a topic
of debate, to create a dialogue between
clients and their suppliers, and highlight
that the culture of late payment had to
change. Thus the hysterical subsequent
commentary is really rather ironic. Far
from meaning that the Code has ‘failed’, it
means completely the opposite, that the
Code is in fact working.
Can the Code be better? Yes of course.
Could it be strengthened further? Yes
indeed and it should be. But the real
problem with the Code is not the Code
itself, or how it is administered, but rather
how it is promoted. Some commentators
were quick to point fingers after the
Carillion collapse that the construction
giant was a signatory to the Code. As
such, they argued, it demonstrated that
the Code was worthless. Really?
Had any of those same commentators
raised a challenge in recent times?
Had they used the challenge process
to demonstrate that Carillion was not
treating its suppliers fairly? Are they
aware, for example, that the Code has a one
hundred percent success rate in resolving
every payment dispute challenge that has
ever been made, including those levelled
against well-known High Street names?
No. I thought not.
But it’s perhaps not their fault. The
problem is that the challenge process is
not widely enough known or publicised,
and in my opinion that’s where the
Government, business organisations and
the media, should focus their attentions.
If they did that, it would help make the
Prompt Payment Code the beacon of best
practice that it set out to be.
The Recognised Standard / www.cicm.com / May 2018 / PAGE 4