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Departmental Correspondence

Volume 487: debated on Thursday 29 January 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what her 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. (251441)

The Cabinet Office, on an annual basis, publishes a report to Parliament on the performance of departments in replying to Members' correspondence. The report for 2007 was published on 20 March 2008, Official Report, columns 71-74WS.

Information for 2008 is currently being collated and will be published as soon as it is ready. Reports for earlier years are available in the Library of the House.

The specific information requested for 2008 is as follows:

Average response times

Number of days

Correspondence Category

2006

2007

2008

Home Office ministerial correspondence

7.4

7.6

9.8

Home Office public correspondence (letters)

10.0

9.7

16.6

Home Office public correspondence (emails)

8.6

9.7

14.2

UKBA ministerial correspondence - ministerial replies

22.1

19.6

20

UKBA Ministerial Correspondence - official replies

24.3

16.9

16.4

Note:

The target for replying to Home Office Ministerial Correspondence is 15 working days. For all other correspondence categories it is 20 working days. UKBA figures for public letters and emails are not available.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how long on average her Department took to provide a substantive response to correspondence from members of the public in the last 12 months. (251613)

The average time taken to respond to correspondence from members of the public—letters and e-mails—is 15.6 working days.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how long on average her Department took to reply to correspondence from hon. Members in the last 12 months. (251680)

The Cabinet Office, on an annual basis, publishes a report to Parliament on the performance of Departments in replying to Members’ correspondence. The report for 2007 was published on 20 March 2008, Official Report, columns 71-74WS.

Information for 2008 is currently being collated and will be published as soon as it ready. Reports for earlier years are available in the Library of the House.

The specific information requested is as follows for 2008:

Correspondence category

Average response time 2008 (days)

Home Office ministerial correspondence

9.8

UKBA ministerial correspondence—ministerial replies

20

UKBA ministerial correspondence—official replies

16.4

Note:

The target for replying to Home Office ministerial correspondence is 15 working days. For UKBA ministerial correspondence it is 20 working days.