Government pledge to increase UK’s National Living Wage

1st October 2019.

James Salmon, Operations Director.

Government pledge to increase UK’s National Living Wage.

 

Chancellor Sajid Javid has pledged to raise the National Living Wage in the UK to £10.50 within the next five years, and lower the age threshold for those who qualify from 25 to 21.

 

Speaking at the Conservative Party’s annual conference in Manchester, Mr. Javid said the living wage pledge would make the UK “the first major economy in the world to end low pay altogether.”

 

He added: “It’s clear it’s the Conservatives who are the real party of labour. We are the workers’ party.”

 

The current rate for over 25s is £8.21 – but the Living Wage Foundation says it should already be £9 across the UK and £10.55 for those in London.

 

Business lobby groups raise concerns

 

Business lobby groups were quick to voice caution about Mr. Javid’s announcement.

 

Mike Cherry, the national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: “While it is welcome that the Chancellor is giving businesses five years to adapt, this increase will leave many small employers struggling and, without help, could make some small firms unviable. Those in sectors with tight margins and which are heavily labour-dependent, such as the care sector, retail or hospitality, will be particularly badly hit without support.”

 

Adam Marshall, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: “Companies already face significant cumulative employment costs . . . so government must take action to alleviate the heavy cost-burden facing firms, or risk denting productivity and competitiveness.”

 

Helen Dickinson, the chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, said there was “nothing wrong with targeting higher wages,” but “all of this adds to the cumulative pressures you have seen take their toll on the retail sector.”

Update 02/10/2019 FSB: Firms would like 10 years to deliver wage increase

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) says many of its members would like a decade to implement Chancellor Sajid Javid’s plans to significantly increase the national minimum wage.

The FSB’s employment policy chief Michael Mealing said: “Small businesses are agile and can adjust to change but they’re also fragile and need the maximum amount of time so that they can plan and change very much their cost base,” saying that while five years was reasonable, “I think many small businesses would consider ten years would have been better.”

He also warned that for low-pay sectors “the advent of a very much higher national living wage, will make the problem in those sectors significantly worse”.

Meanwhile, Craig Beaumont, the FSB’s advocacy director, has said the Chancellor did not consult business groups on his plan to raise the national living wage. He said: “Government would normally reach out on something like this, to understand the impact of £16bn being shouldered by small businesses that they know are struggling with employment costs.”

 

Coffey: Reckless bosses could be sent to jail

 

Elsewhere, Therese Coffey, the Work and Pensions Secretary, told the annual conference that the government would ensure that reckless business owners who plunder pension pots go to jail.

 

Ms Coffey also promised to “put people in control of their pension pots” with the creation of the new pensions “dashboards.”

 

She went on to say that ministers will “make good” on commitments to deliver a new pension fund for Royal Mail workers and also announced that a new app aimed at helping young people find work is to be trialled as part of a multi-million pound employment initiative.

 

Thomas Cook staff protest at Conservative gathering

 

Meanwhile, former employees of tour operator Thomas Cook have protested outside the conference venue in Manchester, demanding financial support from the Government.

 

Dozens of protesters, some wearing cabin crew uniforms, chanted “pay us now” and held placards that read: “Bankers bailed out, Thomas Cook kicked out.”

 

More than 9,000 employees were left jobless and without pay when the company collapsed after being unable to secure a late rescue deal.

 

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has defended the government’s decision not to bail out the firm.

 

“I fear it would have kept them afloat for a very short period of time and then we would have been back in the position of needing to repatriate people in any case,” he told the BBC’s Today programme.

Do you sell on credit?

With pressures on the cash flow it is essential that you stay on top of the credit limits you grant customers and watch carefully for any late payments.

Those customers will look for the easiest option  to boost their cash-flow. Don’t let it be you.

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It is essential to have credit management systems in place to monitor and check your customers credit worthiness.

It is also best practice to use a trusted third party like CPA to make sure you are paid on time by customers, no matter how good a name they have.

About CPA

The Credit Protection Association can help!

Formed in 1914, CPA has been providing credit management services to SMEs for over 100 years.

At the Credit Protection Association, we provide first class credit information that can help you avoid being over extended to customers who are at risk. Our monitoring service can flag up warning signs long before the end, giving you the chance to adjust and reduce your exposure. We provide recommended credit limits and credit scores on a traffic light system and can help you set appropriate credit policies for your customers.

We regularly publish lists of the latest insolvencies but by then it is too late. Our credit reports however predict approximately 96% of company insolvencies long before they arrive.

Companies in trouble usually have very bad cash flow and they try to deal with it by delaying payment to their suppliers, increasing your exposure to them.

If you supply on credit, help us help you identify the risks.

Why use a third party collector?

As a third party collector, we can also get your payments prioritised over those who are not as hot on collections. When you customer receives a letter from the Credit Protection Association regarding their outstanding account, they are going to want to get that resolved as a priority. Our overdue account recovery service can get your unpaid invoices to the top of their “to do” list and get your invoice paid.

Over the years we have collected billions in overdue invoices for our customers.

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The Credit Protection Association – Prompting Punctual Payments – Ethical, Effective, Efficient, Economical collections

Ready to speak to an advisor?

For help or advice on credit management, entirely without obligation.

Call us today

0330 053 9263

CPA is passionate about late payment

The Credit Protection Association has been protecting smaller firms against poor payment practices for over 100 years.

We are extremely passionate about breaking the late payment culture that holds back the UK economy and threatens many SMEs with cash flow difficulties being the single biggest killer of Britain’s small businesses.

If you were regularly paid late we can help. Those former customers used you to boost their own cashflow, regularly paying you late.

As a result you had extra costs, you had the distraction of having to chase payment, you had opportunity costs because your capital was tied up in their late invoices.

Under little used legislation, you are entitled to compensation for those late payments.

Now you can boost your own cash-flow.

CPA can help unearth the those hidden treasures.

We have the technology to reveal the compensation you are due and we have the extensive experience and expertise to then turn those claims into cash.

Yes, CPA can help you boost your business cash-flow.

Don’t let your bankers control you, contact CPA today.

The Credit Protection Association – Prompting Punctual Payments – Ethical, Effective, Efficient, Economical collections

Read our blog here on how to crack down on the late payment culture.

Read our blog here on how to give late payers the slap they need.

The “Why” of the late payment culture.

New PM should walk the walk and back small firms over late payments

Paying late is “crack cocaine” to big business.

Late payment culture risks “spiraling out of control”

visit our late payment compensation page

See our full blog and FAQ on late payment compensation

Do you realise you could be sitting on a fortune?

Late payments often result in a cash flow crunch and leave SMEs in need of a cash injection.

If you sold B2B on credit then there may be a hidden source of capital you can call on.

If you fancy an bit of extra cash in your business, rather than jumping through hoops with your bank, you could look to uncover the resources from an unexpected source within your own business.

Not many are aware but there could be a hidden fortune within your business, sitting there, just waiting to be uncovered and released.

We can help you uncover the pile of gold, you didn’t even know you were sitting on.

If you trade with other businesses and were often paid late then you could be entitled to significant compensation.

Under little known and under-utilised legislation your business could be due huge amounts in compensation that you didn’t even know about.

Let’s be clear – this is not a way to weaken any customer relationships you value. It is one that identifies who’s been paying late and then recover the potentially significant sums in compensation using Late Payment Legislation from businesses where the relationship has already ended.

You can pick and choose who you want us to follow up – but once we’ve agreed which companies you’d like to pursue compensation from it’s a fast process and there’s no financial outlay to you whatsoever. My team at CPA put its expertise to work to recover the compensation due and fight late payment culture.

That compensation could provide the cash boost your business needed.

But don’t delay, that compensation evaporates if not claimed within six years of the late payment.

How can CPA help?

CPA has developed a unique technology to dig into your accounting records and discover the cash injection you are due by means of compensation. The software does all the hard work. Our software interacts over the cloud with over 300 different software packages, working directly with your accounts package, just so long as it’s stored on a computer.

We recognise that most companies do not have the resources to spend time on the identification and calculation of Late Payment Compensation. Our service can produce an Analyses within just a few days with (usually) less than 30 mins of co-operation from our clients. We work directly with over 300 accounting packages but can also work with bespoke accounts packages. Indeed, speed is essential as the oldest invoices may fall foul of the 6-year time limit.

Once the Sales Ledger Analyses is made available to clients, all that is required is that management decide which commercially sensitive ex-customers to remove from the list and return it to us.

CPA then uses its years of collection experience to explain and recover the Late Payment Compensation Claims. Clients do not handle any part of the recovery process as our team will take all communications from the companies against who the claims has been made. Often, it’s simply a case of explaining the legislation, sometimes we have to go all the way and enforce the legislation through the courts.

The result is that we are realising clients’ claims worth tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of pounds which, of course, is pure net profit.  You may also be among the recipients of “hundreds of thousands of pounds” should you elect to take advantage of our services.

We do the work, you receive the cash.

If you have supplied goods and services to businesses on credit and were regularly paid late then you could be due significant sums in late payment compensation.

We are talking to companies and unearthing claims in the hundreds of thousands from former business customers who paid them late. Large business customers who abused their power to inflict unfair and sometimes illegal payment practices.

We are helping business owners  who are looking to boost the returns from their business before they retire. We are helping businesses who have lost major clients after years of loyal service to get properly compensated for systematic late payment. We are helping companies that were looking to close down, who looked insolvent and finding that cash injection they need to avoid insolvency.

Those former clients who regularly paid you late can finally be made to pay.

Ready to speak to an advisor?

For help or advice on credit management, entirely without obligation.

Call us today

0330 053 9263

The Credit Protection Association is a credit management company established in 1914. If you supply goods or services on credit then we can help you!

The Credit Protection Association – Prompting Punctual Payments – Ethical, Effective, Efficient, Economical collections

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