Monthly Archives: April 2021

Hot Business News Today

How to apply for public sector tendering as a small business

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Originally written by Melanie Bryan on Small Business
Demystifying public sector tendering
Would you like an introduction to a client who:

Spends around £284bn each year on goods and services?
Issues around 1,500 new contract opportunities each week?
Pays on time and won’t go bust?
Wants SMEs to be suppliers – awards around 59 per cent of contracts by value to small businesses?

Well, the good news is that you can – that client is the public sector. No wonder Lord Young named the public sector as the client to target for micro-businesses that want to grow.
Winning public sector contracts can also help stabilise your cashflow. For example, contracts for services are usually for at least a year and most small suppliers get paid within 30 days of submitting an accurate invoice and many are paid within 14 days.
And remember that public sector is quite wide; for example, it includes government, local authorities, NHS, police and fire services. There are also several other organisations who use similar procurement processes including universities, construction, and utility companies.
What’s more the public sector recognises that SMEs can offer better value, higher quality service, greater flexibility and can be more innovative than larger companies. Therefore it wants more to become suppliers and

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Hot Business News Today

Government demands answers from banks on business account delays

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Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
The chair of the Treasury Select Committee, Mel Stride MP, has written to six high street banks to respond to difficulties faced by SMEs opening new business current accounts.
The high street banks are Natwest, HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, Metro Bank and Santander.
Questions include:

Whether their criteria for opening business accounts has changed since the start of the pandemic
Whether waiting times have increased
How customer complaints have been handled

Commenting on the correspondence, Mr Stride said:
“As the recovery from the pandemic gets underway, many SMEs will continue to need vital support from financial institutions. It’s critical that these institutions are adapting to the requirements of SMEs as the economy starts to pick up. The Committee wants to know more about the state of the business current account market, and whether action needs to be taken to mitigate the difficulties faced by SMEs.”
Banks have been given a month to respond to Stride’s letter.
Responding to the news, Rich Wagner, CEO and founder of Cashplus Bank, said:
“For many years viable UK small businesses have been let down and made to jump through hoops by dominant high street banks that are only really interested in serving larger, established businesses. Nonetheless, it is

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