WORCESTERSHIRE County Council is struggling to meet targets that say it should pay suppliers within 30 days even though it is trying to pay most companies within 10.

Finance chief Mike Weaver said it is practically impossible for the council to get a perfect score on the way it measures invoice payments due to the way budgets are decentralised.

He also said the council is its own worst enemy when assessing its performance in this area as its targets are stricter than might be necessary.

The county council’s target this year is to pay 95 per cent of invoices it receives within 30 days.

But its performance between July and September was at 89 per cent, up one per cent on the previous three months.

In the previous three years it has consistently achieved an overall performance of about 90 per cent. At a meeting of the resources panel Mr Weaver said: “We get very few cases of complaints during the year about bad payments by the county council.

“We have always taken the view that suppliers should be paid as quickly as possible – we should not be delaying to gain a cash flow.

“We don’t want local suppliers failing for want of cash flow.

“We recognise this is public money. We are not handing out gifts, we are paying for services rendered. We are not sitting on this cash to make a turn at their expense.”

Mr Weaver said there was a focus on trying to pay companies within 10 days instead of 30.

“Sixty per cent of transactions are now done within 10 days,” he said.

However, Mr Weaver said the way it logs an invoice when it comes in puts the council at a disadvantage in terms of meeting targets and that not reaching the tough target was “something of a blot on my copy book”.

“Because we are a highly decentralised organisation invoices don’t simply come to the financial services directorate and then get paid,” he said.

“We will be having a look to see if we can simplify and streamline the processing of these invoices.”