Barry Ashmore, founder of the website for specialist subcontractors, was invited to an evidence session in Parliament earlier this week to speak to a cross party group of MPs regarding the state of the construction industry owing to late payments and unfair payment terms.
He put forward to the MPs a proposed solution to the payment issues suffered by specialist contractors in the construction industry, in the form of StreetwiseSubbie.com's 'Fair Treatment Charter'.

The charter consists of 12 simple but effective points that could be introduced quickly and at virtually no cost that would provide a workable deterrent and solution to the current malpractices and issues of late payment in the UK construction industry.

The charter was written by members of the construction industry, for members of the construction industry, based on the honest responses received for their 'State of Industry Survey', which can be downloaded from the StreetwiseSubbie website and with some of Mr Ashmore's own experiences of the industry.

MPs were particularly interested in point 7 of the proposed charter which says: 'No bespoke sub-contracts. Use only un-amended standard form sub-contracts, eg, the JCT or NEC suite of sub-contracts.' StreetwiseSubbie.com says that this point alone would put an end to a great many of the ruthless tactics used by contractors when wording their sub-contracts, allowing them to pay late, pay less than is fair or was agreed, or to simply not pay at all.

Also attending the evidence session were Dortech's director Steve Sutherland and Balfour Beatty's chief executive Andrew McNaughton.

In his opening statement to the MPs in attendance, including host MP Debbie Abrahams who has been actively working on the late payments issue across UK industries, Mr Ashmore said: '5,000 specialist contractors have failed since the recession. Conversely, during the same period, the profitability of contractors generally has improved.'

He claimed that the Prompt Payment Code and the Government's mystery shopper service have had little or no effect.

Mr Ashmore will be giving a full report of the recommendations at StreetwiseSubbie.com's conference 'Specialist Contracting in the UK is Broken! - What Can We Do To Fix It?' in Nottingham on 7 June. Visit the website at http://www.streetwisesubbie.com/ for more information.