To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to his answers of 27 February, refs. 95076 and 98813, for what reasons the delay in replying to the letters of (a) 21 November and (b) 8 October 2002 occurred. [100941]
[holding answer 5 March 2003]: I apologise for the delays you have been experiencing in receiving replies to your correspondence.Unfortunately, during the course of the year there have been several issues, which have contributed to the overall delays in providing response and has led to outstanding correspondence. The introduction of a new information technology system to track correspondence throughout the Department took longer to bed in than expected.
The Customer Service Centre was established on 1 December to improve the Department's performance in handling telephone, written and e-mail inquiries from members of the public and their representatives. One of the first tasks of the Customer Services Centre has been to clear outstanding cases and to put systems in place to prevent this kind of backlog from building up again.