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The Federation of Small Businesses is urging local authorities to help small firms combat the credit crunch by paying their bills more quickly. Essex regional chairman, Bill Pirie, is hoping to persuade other councils to follow the lead given by Essex CC, which has set a 21-day target for processing and paying all invoices for goods and services, and Brentwood DC, which has set a 20-day deadline. Mr Pirie has written to the county's district councils and to the neighbouring London boroughs of Havering and Redbridge, as well as other public organisations, urging them to help support local businesses by speeding-up payments more quickly than the standard 30 or 45 days. Mr Pirie said: ‘It isn't just district and borough councils which can help support the local economy in this way – we know many parish and town councils also use local businesses to provide their residents with goods and services, and while appreciating that many of these are run by volunteers, we would ask them to speed up their payments, if at all possible, and we have written to Essex Association of Local Councils to raise this with their members. ‘We would also hope Essex Police, Essex County Fire and Rescue Service and health trusts based in the county will follow suit. We hope we will see swift action by these public bodies.' St Helens MBC is celebrating the success of its partnership with St Helen's Chamber of Commerce in attracting £23m investment through the Local Enterprise Growth Initiative to help create 700 new businesses and find jobs for more than 2,000 local people. The partnership was set up in 2006, and has an investment programme which will run until 2011, supporting 11 major local projects.

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BUSINESS

Timely move to help local firms

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