Members: Correspondence

(asked on 18th November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many items of MPs’ correspondence have not received a reply within the 20-day target in the last six months.


Answered by
Kevin Foster Portrait
Kevin Foster
This question was answered on 27th November 2020

The Department work to a target of responding to 95% of MPs written correspondence within 20 working days.

On policy related correspondence the Department has replied to 4,023 letters from hon. Members in the last six months. Of these 2,600 have been replied to in over 20 days.

The latest published data on UKVI performance against the service standard is held at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-august-2020

This includes data from quarter 2 - 2017 up to and including the end of quarter 2-2020/21. We are proposing the release of data for quarter 3, in due course.

Performance has been impacted by a very significant increase in the volume of correspondence received, alongside the need for Ministers and officials to instigate a remote process for drafting and signing correspondence during the period of COVID-19 restrictions. An action plan is currently in place to clear backlogs and drive up performance.

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