Poor payment practices have long been an issue for contractors, particularly for small to medium-sized companies that often struggle to carry the financial burden imposed when invoices are not settled on time.

Lobbying by the Specialist Engineering Contractors’ (SEC) Group and other leading industry bodies has resulted in the launch of the Office of Government and Commerce’s recent Fair Payment Charter, detailed in its Guide to Best Fair Payment Practices.

I want to encourage contractors to support the charter, which should prove to be a massive step towards ending poor payment practices.

We envisage that the government will want to see evidence of the charter’s success, so it is important that we reinforce its acceptance among clients and monitor its effectiveness.

ECA members can help by informing us if they are working on a job where the charter should apply, but it is being ignored, and instances where it is being successfully applied, so that we may report these findings back via the SEC Group.

The charter alone won’t change our industry’s culture overnight, but I urge firms not to ignore it. Speak to your clients about it; find out if they have signed up. With the industry's support of the charter we hope to see best practice in public sector projects across the whole of the construction supply chain.

Source

Electrical and Mechanical Contractor