I've been following the debate about retention and can fully understand the points of view of both subcontractors and employers.
It seems clear that retention has an adverse affect on every subcontractor's cash flow. Subcontractors, however, are notoriously slow when it comes to submitting their final accounts. Many months and, quite often, years go by before the final account is produced. Thousands of pounds can remain outstanding. My advice to subcontractors is that a quick fix to their cash flow problems could be to speed up their submission of final accounts.

Postscript

Roger Knowles, chairman and chief executive, James R Knowles, via email.