Small Business Commissioner
UK public body supporting small businesses
The Office of the Small Business Commissioner (OSBC) is an independent public body established by Government under the Enterprise Act 2016 to tackle late payments and unfair payment practices. It supports small businesses to get paid quickly and on time, influences large businesses to improve payment times to suppliers and works with all business to improve the culture of payment practices across the whole of the UK – England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The Small Business Commissioner has a statutory duty to review complaints by small businesses regarding late payments, as well as provide advice and support on issues relating to late payment and payment practices in the private sector. Additionally, the OSBC undertake a range activity to improve outcomes for small businesses and work across Government, and with partners in the private and third sector, to raise awareness of the impact of late payments and unfair payment practices.
The OSBC also administers the Fair Payment Code (FPC) on behalf of the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). The FPC is designed to tackle late and unfair payment practices among businesses, replacing the previous Prompt Payment Code. It encourages businesses to adopt clear, fair, and collaborative payment practices, offering different award tiers (Gold, Silver, and Bronze) based on their payment performance.
Background
The Small Business Commissioner was established as a non-departmental public body by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). It was announced in a discussion paper issued in July 2015 and was formally proposed for creation within the Enterprise Bill introduced into the UK Parliament in September 2015.
Anna Soubry MP, the Minister of State for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise within the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, anticipated that the Small Business Commissioner would 'build the confidence and capabilities of small businesses to help them assert themselves in contractual disputes and negotiate more effectively'.
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This entry incorporates text from “Small Business Commissioner” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.