The Minister for Small Business industry and Enterprise , Anna Soubry, has announced the creation of a Small Business Commissioner, who will be given the job of changing the culture of paying invoices late, rife in the UK.

At any point in time, SME's in the UK are owed over £26 billion and have to devote valuable resources to chasing funds and incur interest charges due to running needless overdrafts.

The template for the new Commissioner's role is Australian, where considerable success has been achieved in a role not just designed for late payments but to mediate in disputes between two parties, avoiding costly legal action and favouring the guy with deeper pockets.

The Government is building the role of the Small Business Commissioner now and is inviting participation from companies and interested bodies, with existing situations and ideas, so the different kinds of problems and disputes can be highlighted and resources allocated to deal with them. Big companies bullying small suppliers will no doubt be at the top of their hit list.

Paying late as a matter of routine business practice, in any size company, could be very damaging to a company's reputation, if a "naming and shaming" strategy is used which may bring about the quickest and most effective change to this very negative aspect of UK business.