Nursery World - Councils can learn lessons from financial services on late payments

The scourge of late payments is completely unnecessary, argues Keith Appleyard, nursery treasurer and formerly Head of Governance, Risk and Compliance at American Express

Settings across the country are having to deal with delays to payments of thousands of pounds as councils struggle to cope with clunky funding systems. But it would not be unreasonable to ask your local authority ‘What if you had a similar recurrence impacting your payroll? What disaster recovery/business continuity plans do you have to address any recurrence (such as) the ability to raise BACS payments manually?’

In my case, I have adequate funds available to pay at least one week’s interim payroll on schedule lodged with two different banks, and BACS transactions supported by two different chip cards and four different chip card readers. The latter in case any battery dies at a crucial moment, rather than be held up for three business days waiting for a new card/reader to arrive.

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