THE Welsh Assembly Government has criticised Monmouthshire County Council for paying less than 40 percent of its bills on time, claiming it damages small businesses.

The authority is close to the bottom of a league table of authorities, with the next-worst council, Powys, paying 77.3 per cent of its bills within the target time.

Welsh councils pay out more than 3.5 million invoices to private sector firms each year, for everything from cleaning services to school meal suppliers and MCC has a payment record which is twice as bad as the Welsh average.

County halls are supposed to pay all uncontested invoices – bills for everything from school meal suppliers to management consultants – within 30 days.

In 2007-08 Monmouthshire paid 39.9 per cent of bills within this time. Powys, paid 77.3 per cent on time. The best-performer was Pembrokeshire which pays up on time in 98 per cent of cases.

The Assembly Government has had its own target of paying all invoices within 60 days, recently trimmed to paying within 15 days in response to the economic downturn.

Assembly Finance Minister Andrew Davies has said The public sector has an important role to play in ensuring the sustainability of small business's cash flow.

"The Labour-led Assembly Government is committed to making sure we do all that we possibly can to help small and medium-size businesses by making sure payments are made on time, and that we speed up the time it takes to make these payments. That is the fair and right thing to do during these tough economic times."

The 15-day target for WAG suppliers' invoices was discussed at an economic summit earlier this month. Supporters of the short time scale – the old target was 60 days – say it will provide a £500m injection of cash to small businesses.

The performance report also reveals that the proportion of waste recycled or reused increased in 21 of the 22 local authorities.

In 2008-9 12.8 per cent of waste was composted compared to 11.2 per cent in 2007-08.

This ranged from 21.8 per cent in Monmouthshire to 5.6 per cent in Blaenau Gwent. The average number of days taken to repair street lamp failures increased from 4.5 in 2007-08 to 4.7 in 2008-09.

This ranged from less than one day in Merthyr Tydfil to almost 13 days in Torfaen with Monmouthshire joining Torfaen in the bottom two authorities.

Barrie Pearson, Monmouthshire County Council's Head of Revenues, Exchequer & I.C.T., said:

"The latest available figures covering the period from July to September show that we are paying 83.49 per cent of suppliers within 30 calendar days.

"This is a marked improvement but there is clearly still room for improvement.

"We are currently targeting specific areas within the council where delays are occurring to take measures to ensure we pay all undisputed invoices in a timely manner to assist businesses at this difficult time. "