Councils in the North West take an average of 17.5 days to pay suppliers

Councils in the North West take an average of 17.5 days to pay suppliers, new research has revealed.

According to the study by the Forum of Private Business, this is a slight improvement on the 18.9 days recorded in 2009.

Average payment times in the region differed, with the local authority in Blackburn with Darwen taking an average of 8.5 days to pay, while those in Rochdale took 11.5 days.

However, local authorities in Manchester took an average of 23 days to settle bills compared with ten days in Liverpool.

The Forum’s policy advisor, Robert Downes, said that despite pressure from the Government for public bodies to pay companies within ten days, only one council in the North West is achieving that figure.

“In the space of three years while we have seen some improvement in average payment times, which is pleasing, if you look at the bigger picture most councils here have much to do to get even close to the Government’s ten-day payment target. This again is poor.

“Hats off to Blackburn with Darwen for making the top ten nationally. At 8.5 days that’s an excellent turnaround time. Pendle is also worthy of praise too, for paying an impressive 91 per cent of their invoices in under ten days. If only all councils could do this.”

He said that, with some exceptions, councils talk about speeding up payment times, but few are actually making progress.

“In a full three years, with the economy bouncing along the bottom the whole time, payment times have improved by an underwhelming 1.4 days on average.

“That’s not really the improvement we would have liked to see, and frankly those councils who average longer than 30 days need to re-evaluate their payment systems from the top down.”

“Late payment is a curse for many small firms, and if local councils can’t get it right with all the resources at their disposal, then the private sector will always have an excuse for doing the same, but worse.”

Source: http://www.enforbusiness.com/news/forum-private-business-councils-north-west-take-average-175-days-pay-suppliers-20128992