Payment: time to be counted!(Editor's comment)

THE Fair Payment Campaign being organised by the National Specialist Contractors Council (NSCC) on behalf of its affiliated organisations, including the Contract Flooring Association, is worthy of the support of every flooring contractor.

Thousands of specialist contractors go bust every year after being starved of cashflow. Bloody-minded builders and main contractors are often to blame, routinely withholding payment for weeks, sometimes months, after the due date. There is also retentions, a reviled and outdated practice, which is still widely used and abused, inflicting untold financial hardship on sub-contractors.

But perhaps the biggest issue is certainty of payment, both the amount and the date. This is one of the three major objectives of the new campaign; the others being payment within 30 days and the scrapping of retentions.

Achieving these aims will clearly benefit the whole construction industry. The win-win potential is enormous. An equitable payment system will improve cashflow, decrease financing costs and cut the number of small business failures. This in turn will boost available working capital, stimulating more investment in training, health and safety, and plant and equipment, while improving the overall quality of work that clients receive.

NSCC President, Simon Bottomley, says: ...