Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what proportion of invoices from small and medium-sized businesses were paid by his Department within five working days of receipt of invoice in the last 12 months for which information is available.
Bob Neill (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Communities and Local Government; Bromley and Chislehurst, Conservative)
The Department for Communities and Local Government does not currently record and publish information about the size of suppliers as this does not fully reflect the number and size of businesses engaged in supplying goods and services. We do not discriminate by size of business because many small and medium-sized enterprises can be found within larger supply chains.
The following table sets out the Department's overall performance against the five working day target during the last 12 months:
Number of invoices paid on time (within five days of receipt) Percentage paid on time Number of invoices paid late (after five days of receipt) Percentage paid late June 2010 2,985 80.03 596 19.97 July 2010 2,795 79.25 580 20.75 August 2010 2,479 79.43 510 20.57 September 2010 2,420 83.55 398 16.45 October 2010 2,676 83.18 450 16.82 November 2010 2,513 81.93 454 18.07 December 2010 2,030 82.12 363 17.88 January 2011 2,097 81.12 396 18.88 February 2011 1,992 79.07 417 20.93 March 2011 2,335 75.89 563 24.11 April 2011 1,751 79.10 366 20.90 May 2011 1,411 84.05 225 15.95
It should be noted that the new five-day target is more demanding than the previous 10-day target. We are taking steps to improve our performance on meeting these new targets.