asked Her Majesty's Government:

Further to the Written Statement by Lord Davies of Oldham on 20 March (WS 42–6), whether any government department or agency other than the Ministry of Defence has a correspondence database which is unable to distinguish between Freedom of Information requests and other correspondence from Members of Parliament and Peers. [HL2836]

Unless otherwise stated in my Written Statement on 20 March 2008 (Official Report, WS 42-6) departments have correspondence databases which can distinguish between Freedom of Information requests and other correspondence from Members of Parliament and Peers.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Further to the Written Statement by Lord Davies of Oldham on 20 March (WS 42–6), why the Ministry of Defence's correspondence database is unable to distinguish between Freedom of Information requests and other correspondence from Members of Parliament and Peers; and [HL2835]

Further to the Written Statement by Lord Davies of Oldham on 20 March (WS 42–6) stating that the Ministry of Defence replied to only 48 per cent of correspondence to Members of Parliament and peers within its target in 2007, whether they will collect and report that department's performance in this respect on a monthly basis during 2008. [HL2837]

The Ministry of Defence's correspondence database is used to process all correspondence sent to MoD Ministers. Any correspondence which is considered to be a request for information under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act is recorded separately on the Ministry of Defence's Freedom of Information database. Quarterly statistics on FOI requests are provided to the Ministry of Justice and published on their website (www.justice.gov.uk).

There are no plans to report the department's performance in handling ministerial correspondence on a monthly basis during 2008.