Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the average time is for a Department to respond to casework queries from Rt hon. and hon. Members.

The Government attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of correspondence.

As per the Cabinet Office’s Guide to Handling Correspondence on gov.uk, departments and agencies should aim to respond to correspondence from MPs within a 20 working day target deadline, but are advised to consider setting more challenging deadlines than 20 working days to ensure a better minimum service level.

Performance data on responses to correspondence from Parliamentarians for 2022 can be found on gov.uk. This data shows the volume of correspondence received by government departments and agencies from Parliamentarians and the percentage that was responded to within each department’s target deadline as well as the 20 working day maximum target deadline.

I expect Government Ministers to respond quickly and effectively to Members’ correspondence and I will continue to drive that message.