Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many creditors remained unpaid by his Department on 1 June 2014; and of those, how many had been unpaid for (a) 45 days, (b) 60 days, (c) 75 days and (d) more than 76 days.

My Department has a cross-government target of paying 80 per cent of invoices within 5 days of receipt. In 2013-14, we paid 84 per cent of invoices within that target.

As of 1 June 2014, there was just one outstanding creditor unpaid, in each case, for (a) 45-59 days, (b) 60-75 days and (c) over 76 days.

There were a further 24 outstanding creditors of shorter durations.

To place this in context, in 2013-14, my Department paid 11,937 invoices.