Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what proportion of undisputed invoices his Department and its agencies and non-departmental public bodies paid within five days in the last period for which figures are available.

I refer the Hon member to the Department's our last Annual report and Accounts for 2013-14 (pages 48 &49 refer), the notes therein report on the Departments prompt payment as follows:

Policy on Payment of Suppliers:

The Department paid 93.4% (2012-13: 95.2%) of valid invoices within 10 days of receipt and 99.6% within 30 days (2012-13: 99.7%). Following Budget 2010, the Government announced a new target for central Government Departments to pay 80% of valid invoices within five working days. DCMS’s (Department only) performance against the target in 2013-14 was 77.2% (2012-13: 82.3%). The Department does not currently operate a Procure to Pay (P2P) system, which would allow automatic invoice matching and increase performance against the five day target. A P2P system will be introduced as part of the move to shared services that is currently in train across Whitehall. In the meantime, DCMS will continue to monitor and work to improve its performance against the five day target through training of and regular communication with authorising officers in the Department. "

The next set of accounts for the financial year 2014-15, are expected to be laid in July 2015.