Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how often his Department reviews its processes regarding the logging of emails, letters and other correspondence received; and if he will make a statement.

The Ministry of Justice uses an in-house data-handling system to log correspondence and assign it to the appropriate team for a response. The team that coordinates responses to the majority of correspondence gather briefly each day to manage their workload. This can involve suggestions from team members for improving processes, including logging. They meet more formally once a month, when improvements can also be proposed. The team meets once a fortnight with Ministers' private offices to review how correspondence is handled and issues monthly management information to members of the senior civil service responsible for correspondence handling in their teams, to focus on performance.

The Department has a 15 working-day target to respond to Members. Guidance on handling correspondence from Members of Parliament, Peers, MEPs and Members of devolved Administrations is available online at the following link - https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/61196/guide-handling-gov-correspondence.pdf