Departmental Correspondence

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his Department's average response time to a letter received from (a) an hon. Member and (b) a member of the public was in each of the last three years. (251438)

The Department's average response times to letters received are as follows:

*Days*
	2005	2006	2007
Letters from hon. Members	13	16	16
Letters from members of the public	10	11	11

Figures for 2008 are not yet available.

The number of letters answered within our Whitehall standard target of responding to 90 per cent. of correspondence within 20 working days is as follows:

*Percentage*
	2005	2006	2007
Letters from hon. Members	91	90	92
Letters from members of the public cases	97	93	99

Figures for 2008 are not yet available.

Volume 487: debated on Thursday 29 January 2009