Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps they are taking to reduce backlogs of Member correspondence in their office.
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 within a 20-working day target deadline.
While each Department is responsible for managing their own timeliness in responding to correspondence, the Cabinet Office, as owners of the Guide to Handling Correspondence, regularly engages with correspondence officials in Government Departments to discuss and review performance and issues that may be impacting performance.
With regards to timeliness of responses to enquiries received by members, the Cabinet Office published data on this for 2022 for all government departments on GOV.UK in March 2023, and will be publishing data for Q1 and Q2 2023 shortly. The 2022 data can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-on-responses-to-correspondence-from-mps-and-peers-2022
Government Ministers are expected to respond quickly and effectively to Members’ correspondence and I will continue to drive that message. Every effort must be made to reply to correspondence promptly and within the original deadline.