§ 17. Brigadier Raynerasked the President of the Board of Trade what is the number of clerical staff employed by his Department in answering the 1,250,000 letters of complaint received monthly by his Department; and what is the average time devoted to answering each letter.
§ Sir S. CrippsI am afraid this information is not available, since separate staff is not employed for this particular purpose. I should make it clear to the hon. and gallant Member that the figure quoted covers the whole of the Board's inward correspondence and not letters of complaint only.
§ Brigadier RaynerIs the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that if he could manage to cancel the less useful and most irritating section of the regulations issued by his Department a very large body of complaints would be met and the letters with which his Department would have to deal would be reduced by three-quarters?
§ Sir S. CrippsI am afraid there would be so many protests from industry for so doing that we would have greater correspondence.