Mayor needs to check his facts - Dee Doocey challenges Boris Johnson over claims that City Hall is paying its bills on time

1.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 14th May 2009

Dee Doocey, the Liberal Democrat London Assembly spokesperson on the London economy, commenting on today's claim by Boris Johnson that City Hall, the Police and Transport for London are all paying contractors within 10 days said:

"The Mayor really needs to check his facts. The Mayor seems to be confusing a target with the real record on the ground. It is simply not true that the GLA, Transport for London and the Met are all paying their bills to small businesses within 10 working days.

"As recently as in February the Met was barely paying a third of its invoices within 10 working days. Transport for London and the GLA also fell short of this target.

"Most alarmingly the London Development Agency also has a poor record, paying just 55% of its bills to small businesses within the 10 working day target."

"Instead of peddling inaccurate information the Mayor should turn his attention to the long delays that small and medium sized businesses face in being paid by organisations that he is running."

ENDS

Notes to editors:

1. Writing in today's Evening Standard Boris Johnson states:

"It is vital that we help them in any way we can, and that is why City Hall, the Police and Transport for London are all now paying our contractors within 10 days."

2. The April update of the Mayor's economic recovery action plan revealed that in February 2009 the target of invoices from SMEs being paid within 10 working days was met in the following way:

TfL: 89.9%

LFB: 72.5%

GLA: 63.8% (adjusted to exclude the effect of a 1-day IT network failure in Feb)

LDA: 55.3%

MPS: 35.8%

The report can be accessed at:

http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/publications/2009/docs/economic-recovery-action-update-apr09.pdf (see page 9)