UK Government Criticized For Late Payments Czar Ousting

Weeks after the sudden departure of U.K. Late Payments Czar Paul Uppal, the government is facing backlash for failing to clarify why the small business commissioner has departed.

Reports in The Times on Thursday (Dec. 26) said employers’ group the Forum of Private Business is speaking out against what it called a missed opportunity by the government to provide transparency into the matter. The government sent a “completely inadequate” response to its inquiries over why Uppal was ousted from the position, reports said.

According to the forum’s managing director, Ian Cass, the government has not provided an adequate explanation as to why Uppal has left, and Cass said having an explanation is “very important to our members and all the other small and micro businesses that Paul had worked so hard to understand, build trust with, support and help.”

Cass added that “something doesn’t seem right” about Uppal’s sudden exit, and he said a letter sent to Small Business Minister Kelly Tolhurst did not yield the clarity on the matter he had hoped to obtain.

Earlier this month, the business department’s head of small business payments policy, Paula Lovitt, also declined to discuss the topic with Cass.

Uppal departed the small business commissioner post in October. Soon after, he spoke with The Times and disclosed that he thought he had been forced out of the position but did not have an understanding as to why. According to reports, however, some government officials had raised concerns over a possible conflict of interest regarding Uppal’s separate dealings with an ongoing bank redress scheme.

The former commissioner told the publication, however, that the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy did not clarify how his advisory position to support the development of the bank redress scheme conflicted with his work as the late payments czar.

Uppal came into the position in 2016 in order to support small businesses struggling with late B2B payments from their large corporate customers.