Each of the agencies within the Department records correspondence from customers in a different way, therefore I have listed the performance information for each agency separately.
Child Support Agency
The information requested is in the following table. The target for replying to correspondence from members of the public and their representatives is to reply to 100 per cent. of letters in 15 working days. It is not possible to provide figures for Kent separately, but I can give you the figures for the South East area which includes Kent.
National South East April 2005 86.5 78.4 May 2005 88.2 84.4 June 2005 89.0 89.0 July 2005 88.5 88.0 August 2005 88.4 86.6 September 2005 88.4 86.0 October 2005 88.3 85.8 November 2005 88.2 85.3 December 2005 88.1 84.9 January 2006 88.3 83.7 February 2006 88.25 81.6 March 2006 88.6 76.9 April 2006 87.6 78.8 May 2006 89.3 79.2 June 2006 89.7 81.1 July 2006 90.1 82.2 August 2006 90.7 81.9 September 2006 90.4 81.0 October 2006 90.7 82.0 November 2006 90.9 82.9 December 2006 90.7 80.7 January 2007 89.9 78.2 February 2007 89.0 77.6 March 2007 88.2 76.9
Jobcentre Plus
The information requested is in the following table. The target for replying to correspondence from members of the public and their representatives is to reply to 100 per cent. of letters in 10 working days.
National Kent April 2005 79.10 94.83 May 2005 82.16 89.89 June 2005 86.82 94.64 July 2005 84.54 89.33 August 2005 83.93 89.47 September 2005 83.63 90.70 October 2005 80.81 94.92 November 2005 81.93 94.74 December 2005 79.80 90.63 January 2006 81 .09 91.57 February 2006 81.07 92.50 March 2006 79.51 94.02 April 2006 74.87 97.33 May 2006 79.73 89.22 June 2006 75.72 96.00 July 2006 75.14 97.00 August 2006 81.79 100.00 September 2006 82.21 96.25 October 2006 81.44 91.07 November 2006 83.07 92.62 December 2006 83.67 95.70 January 2007 86.13 95.48 February 2007 84.64 94.03 March 2007 87.25 98.44
The Pension Service: The target for replying to correspondence from members of the public and their representatives is to reply to 100 per cent. of letters in 10 working days. Information on correspondence is not collected monthly but I am able to provide the national quarterly figures for the last 24 months. This is shown in the first table. The second table gives the figures for correspondence from the Motherwell Pension Centre, this is the centre that covers the Kent area. It is not possible to provide figures for Kent separately as information is not recorded in this way.
Percentage in target 2005-06 Qrt1 77 Qrt2 77 Qrt3 88 Qrt4 86 2006-07 Qrt1 79 Qrt2 88 Qrt3 83 Qrt4 83
Percentage in target 2005-06 Qrt1 60 Qrt2 93 Qrt3 100 Qrt4 70 2006-07 Qrt1 93 Qrt2 96 Qrt3 90 Qrt4 83
Disability and Carers Service
The target for replying to correspondence from members of the public and their representatives is to reply to 100 per cent. of letters in 10 working days. Information on the time taken to reply to correspondence is not recorded monthly but I am able to provide you the figures for calendar years 2005 and 2006. These figures are the result of checking an annual sample of 384 cases and can be found in the following table. Figures for Kent are not available as information is only recorded nationally.
Target Achievement Number of checks meeting the standard (percentage) 100 97 Average reply time (working days) 10 3
The Rent Service
The target for replying to correspondence from members of the public and their representatives is to reply to 100 per cent. of letters in 10 working days. Figures for Kent are not recorded separately.
2005-06 2006-07 April 100 100 May 97 100 June 93 100 July 100 100 August 94 100 September 95 100 October 100.3 100 November 94 100 December 100 100 January 95 100 February 97 100 March 100 100
Debt Management
The target for replying to correspondence from members of the public and their representatives is to reply to 100 per cent. of letters in seven working days. Information is only available from April 2006 and figures for Kent are not recorded separately.
National—Percentage cleared in target April 2006 49 May 2006 44 June 2006 40 July 2006 47 August 2006 50 September 2006 56 October 2006 49 November 2006 54 December 2006 53 January 2007 50 February 2007 53 March 2007 46 April 2007 58 May 2007 53
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
The target for replying to correspondence from members of the public and their representatives is to reply to 100 per cent. of letters in 10 working days. I am unable to tell you how HSE has performed against this target as records are not kept centrally. Figures for Kent are not recorded separately.
The Department’s target for replying to correspondence from Members of Parliament and Peers to Ministers is to respond to at least 90 per cent. of letters within 20 working days. The Department achieved 90 per cent. in both calendar years 2005 and 2006.