Spec Finish

WELCOME Nicky Rogers Editor 4 www.thefis.org CONTACT US EDITORIAL Editor: Nicky Rogers Email: nickyr@warnersgroup.co.uk SpecFinish Warners Group Publications West Street Bourne Lincs PE10 9PH ADVERTISING Advertising enquiries: Theresa Geeson Email: theresag@warnersgroup.co.uk SUBSCRIPTIONS SpecFinish is distributed to members of FIS and other selected finishes and interiors businesses. If you wish to receive a copy of SpecFinish or would like to amend or cancel your subscription, please contact either info@thefis.org or telephone 0121 707 0077. FIS Tel: 0121 707 0077 www.thefis.org Email: info@thefis.org FIS, Unit 4, Olton Bridge 245Warwick Rd Solihull, West Midlands B92 7AH SpecFinish magazine is published on behalf of FIS by Warners Group Publications plc and the views expressed in this journal are not necessarily those held by FIS or the publishers. The publishers shall not be under any liability in respect of the contents of the contributed articles. The Editor reserves the right to edit, abridge or alter articles for publication. © All editorial contents SpecFinish 2021 Welcome SPEC FINISH W hat is it with retentions? What other industry would put up with them? Imagine saying to a garage servicing your car, “I’ll pay you most of your bill, but actually I don’t trust you to do a good job, so I’ll keep some back in case I think something isn’t quite right.” You’d be laughed off the premises and almost certainly put on a list of awkward customers. Just because ‘that’s the way it’s always been’ isn’t a good enough reason to withhold money from subcontractors ‘just in case’. As if keeping an eye on the prompt (or otherwise) payment of invoices isn’t enough, how do businesses keep track of when retentions are due to be released. Don’t forget, retentions aren’t just paid, they have to be claimed by the contractor. Claimed! They can be kept for months or years. And who says whether a defect identified before the retention is released is a defect, or wear and tear? Or is that the point, the hope that small businesses forget, give up or go out of business before the retention is paid? This has to change. Meanwhile, on page 22, we have some advice on how you can manage retentions in the easiest most effective way possible and what to do if your retention is not be released. Fortunately, on page 27, you’ll see that the newly appointed Small Business Commissioner (SBC), Liz Barclay, is on to this. Her organisation administers the Prompt Payment Code (PPC), which is a voluntary code of practice for businesses that sets standards for payment practices between businesses of any size and their suppliers. The SBC is pushing the PPC as an ‘ethical regulatory tool’, signing up demonstrates that bigger businesses are committed to paying on time and it gives them the opportunity to really deeply examine their own payment practices and that includes retentions. www.thefis.org