Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what his Department's expected timeframe is for Minister or Department to respond to an hon. Member's email on behalf on a constituent; and what steps his Department is taking to tackle incidences of responses being outstanding for several months.

The Cabinet Office attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of correspondence from MPs and Peers. On 26 May 2022, we published data on the timeliness of government responses to correspondence from MPs and Peers for 2021 on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-on-responses-to-correspondence-from-mps-and-peers-2021. Cabinet Office timeliness improved each quarter of 2021, with 89% of correspondence received from hon. Members in quarter four responded to within 20 working days.

As per the Guide to Handling Correspondence, updated by the Cabinet Office in July 2021, the target response time set by Departments for correspondence must not exceed 20 working days. The Cabinet Office continues to keep its own processes under review to further improve the time taken to respond.