Suppliers suffer from 'endemic" late payment Many small businesses also paid late, on average settling at between 20 and 22 days late, research by information firm Experian found. Philip King, chief executive of the Institute of Credit Management, said the Government had to act by requiring firms to comply with payment codes of practice, either voluntarily or through "coercion." Late payment is endemic. We need Government to do more than make token comment. We need them to really drive activity," he said. A group led by Lloyds, the National Farmers" Union and the Forum of Private Business last month also urged the Government to intervene. Business minister Mark Prisk has promised action. A Government-backed "Get Paid" campaign had been due to launch next week but has been postponed. "We are very mindful that cash-flow is key in any business and any unreasonable withholding of payment can be critical," Mr Prisk said yesterday. Business owners said being paid late had become a risk of doing business in the UK. Tony Carter, who founded Suffolk-based Carters Ceramic Designs 34 years ago, said he experienced fewer problems with overseas buyers, which now receive 50pc of the 5,000 teapots his pottery makes each year. "We are a small company and I don't take kindly to companies telling me they will pay on 60 days and stretch it out to 90 days," he said. Carters fell foul of Past Times" administration in 2006 and did not trade with the new business, which was placed into administration on January 16 this year. "We supplied them in good faith and got caught," said Mr Carter. I am primarily a ceramic designer and a business person because I have to be. Every time we send out an order I don't know that we will get paid. Around 99pc of the time we do. But occasionally I get it wrong. He added: "When you are a small company working with big companies the reality is that, whatever our terms of trade are, their terms of trade will always supersede them. It does not matter who it is. You play ball or you don't play at all.