"Big public sector organisations are pretty good these days", said Edward Handley of Big Wheelers Ltd, a training company in Reading. "But the big companies can be a nightmare, with complicated purchasing systems that are designed to create delays in paying." Almost 36% of business owners who responded to the survey said that public sector bodies were also poor at paying on time.

Another respondent, who wished to remain anonymous, said: "The larger the organisation, the worse it is at paying. This has a severe effect on our business and our relationship with our suppliers as the knock-on effect is that sometimes we are late in paying them." But there was praise for public sector organisations from John Geddes of John Geddes Cycles Ltd in Widnes, Cheshire, who said that: "Once you have an order number, they are good payers." 

The FPB, which represents 25,000 smaller firms across the UK, campaigned for ten years finally to win a statutory right for firms to charge interest on late payments. In June, the FPB sent a letter to the new Chancellor the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, asking him to make tackling late payment a priority. 

The FPB has also complained that supermarkets unilaterally change the terms of trade with their suppliers. The survey reveals that 66% of business owners responding thought that, when this happened, smaller firms should be able to complain in confidence to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) or the Competition Commission. One business owner told the FPB that the problem was "dictatorial statements of trading terms by large customers resulting in slower payments".