Departmental Billing

Jenny Willott

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many and what proportion of invoices submitted to his Department have been paid within 10 days in each month since October 2008; and if he will make a statement. (307956)

The Home Department has invested significantly in its people, with the creation of a professional Shared Service Centre and Procurement Centre of Excellence complemented by the creation of new processes and upgraded Procure to Pay systems.

The Department has been putting a firm focus on paying its suppliers on time when it is in receipt of a compliant invoice. It has been working closely with colleagues in the Department for Business Innovation and Skills reporting on both our legislative obligations of 30 days as well as the 10 day PM’s commitment for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) for correctly presented compliant invoices.

The Home Office performance for paying all invoices within 30 days and paying SME compliant invoices within 10 days for the period October 2008 to November 2009 is shown in the following table:

*Table 1: The Home Office performance of paying total number of invoices within 30 days and SME compliant invoices within 10 days for the period October 2008 to November 2009*
	Home Office
Month	Total number of all invoices paid	Percentage of total number of all invoices paid within 30 days	Number of SMEs’ compliant invoices paid within 10 days	SMEs, percentage of compliant invoices paid with 10 days
October 2008	7,122	83	¹—	¹—
November 2008	5,336	79	¹—	¹—
December 2008	5,934	91	¹—	¹—
January 2009	3,975	83	¹—	¹—
February 2009	6,185	94	649	100
March 2009	8,622	93	770	10O
April 2009	3,929	84	927	100
May 2009	3,749	87	667	98
June 2009	4,112	89	880	99
July 2009	3,840	92	789	99
August 2009	3,601	90	734	99
September 2009	3,517	90	871	99
October 2009	4,465	91	1,159	100
November 2009	4,949	91	1,208	100
¹ Not recorded prior to PM’s announcement to pay all SMEs within 10 days.

The Criminal Records Bureau’s (CRB) started to record performance of paying invoices in April 2009 and to provide information before this date would incur disproportionate cost. CRB’s performance of paying invoices within 10 days for the period April 2009 to November 2009 is shown in the following table.

*Table 2: CRB performance of paying SME invoices within 10 days for the period April 2009 to November 2009*
Month	Total number of all invoices	Number of SME invoices paid within 10 days	SME percentage of invoices paid within 10 days
April 2009	285	115	40.00
May 2009	234	135	25.93
June 2009	256	140	36.43
July 2009	414	160	57.50
August 2009	450	92	34.78
September 2009	474	173	33.53
October 2009	235	112	61.61
November 2009	323	193	72.54

Volume 503: debated on Monday 11 January 2010