To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform pursuant to the answer of 12 January 2009 to Question 244582, when he expects the first complete figures on performance in making payments to suppliers within 10 days to be available. (248687)

[holding answer 19 January 2009]: Government Departments will report performance against the new 10-day payment target in their annual reports, following the established procedure for reporting 30-day payment performance.

Achieving the new 10-day target requires changes in systems, guidance and behaviour in both departmental and supplier systems. It is therefore important that we monitor initial progress and I have asked Departments to collect interim data for the months of November and December and then for the quarter ending March 2009. I expect these data to be available at the end of January 2009 and by the end of April 2009 respectively.