To ask the Minister for Communities to detail the average length of time the Northern Ireland Housing Executive took to issue payments for The Disabled Facilities Grant, broken down for each region, for each of the last three financial years.

The Housing Executive has provided the following table detailing the average number of calendar days taken to issue payment for Disabled Facilities Grants, broken down by Grants Office, for the last two financial years. The Housing Executive has advised that its Private Sector Improvement Services introduced a new IT system in 2019 and therefore it is unable to supply like for like figures for the financial year 2018/19.

It should be noted that the figures for 2020-21 were directly impacted by government restrictions as a result of the ongoing pandemic. The Housing Executive did put in place measures to continue processing applications and payments to the construction industry, where possible, during lockdown.