HL Deb 26 February 2003 vol 645 cc236-9

2.52 p.m.

Baroness Knight of Collingtree

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What steps they are taking to improve the way the Home Office deals with correspondence.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

My Lords, the Secretary of State for the Home Department and his ministerial colleagues attach the highest importance to the speed and quality of replies to all correspondence. A number of important initiatives, led by Ministers, have helped to drive up performance. These include the development of a new, computer-based correspondence tracking system, which is currently being piloted. This will radically change the way in which the department handles letters and help it to produce more timely responses.

Baroness Knight of Collingtree

My Lords, I am grateful for that Answer. When dealing with this issue, will the Minister look particularly at the length of time that the Home Office takes to answer letters? Is he aware that since last November I have had no fewer than three different communications from the Home Office? The latest communication is dated 14th January 2003 and refers to a letter of mine of 18th December 1992. Is not that a little too long to wait?

Lord Bassam of Brighton

My Lords, if it is 1992, it is indefensible. My noble friend has reminded me that we had a Conservative government back in 1992. But these matters are above politics. I understand that there is a particular glitch in one of the computer systems which turns back correspondence and dates it from 1992. A few unfortunate replies have been sent with that date on them. The noble Baroness has probably received one or two of those.

The Home Office is well aware that it has been a poor performer in terms of responding to correspondence. The good news is that over the past year there has been a measured improvement. I understand that in 2001–02, for instance, the number of ministerial replies drafted and dispatched within 10 days was 63 per cent; last year it was 74 per cent. More importantly, the public are getting their correspondence responded to on a target of 90 per cent within two working days. That is a cumulative performance figure. So there have been improvements on previous years. The department takes this issue very seriously and it is for that reason that it has introduced the correspondence tracking system.

Lord Dholakia

My Lords, the noble Baroness is right, there is a serious concern about delays. If the Government can set targets for removal in failed asylum and immigration cases, would it not be possible to set targets for such cases to be dealt with before the people are removed? There have been cases where replies have been received after the people have been deported. It would be much easier to deal with cases before the people leave these shores.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right; that would be highly desirable. It is exactly the objective towards which the Home Office is striving. It should be remembered that the Home Office receives approximately 1 million items of correspondence in any given year. While that is not an excuse for poor performance, it does begin to explain the strain on its correspondence system.

Lord Corbett of Castle Vale

My Lords, while the Minister is looking at the way in which the Home Office handles correspondence, will he see what he can do to end the infuriating practice of "pass the parcel"? A letter that I wrote to the Home Office on 12th December was, for some reason or other, shunted to the Lord Chancellor's Department. The officials there decided that they did not like the look of it and it has now gone to the Department for Transport.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

My Lords, I am not surprised that it has been "shunted" towards the Department for Transport. I apologise for the pun. The department responsible for that particular aspect of a public service will end up dealing with the noble Lord's letter. It is true that some correspondence may have gone incorrectly to a particular department where a departmental responsibility had changed. That may have happened in the instance referred to by the noble Lord.

Lord Renton

My Lords, is the Minister aware that in early December I wrote a letter to one of his colleagues complaining on behalf of a prisoner who had allegedly been badly treated in prison? I received a letter about six weeks later informing me that the correspondence had been lost. I wrote again and a month after that I at last received a reply. Is it not rather shocking that in a case like that, through sheer inefficiency—I do not say on behalf of Ministers, but on behalf of someone—it has taken two and a half months to deal with the matter? Will the Government try to improve on that?

Lord Bassam of Brighton

My Lords, that is a very serious matter. It is something that we should highlight and focus upon. I shall be more than happy to take up that particular case outside your Lordships' House and ensure that responses to the noble Lord are more prompt in future.

On a more practical note, one of the reasons the computer-based correspondence tracking system has been introduced is to stop the physical movement of correspondence around the department. All correspondence which comes into the department will be electronically scanned and therefore the process of tracking correspondence and ensuring that there are proper and appropriate follow-up replies will be aided and eased. It is to be hoped that the kind of instances described by the noble Lord, Lord Renton, will not happen in the future.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville

My Lords, while it was tolerable for Ministers to ask parliamentarians to write to officials rather than to themselves because they were at one stage over-pressed, it was less tolerable that one received letters describing the decision taken in the case nine months after the event—or, indeed, as other noble Lords have said, the papers were lost altogether. Has the pressure on Ministers now eased sufficiently to enable them to absorb the correspondence themselves and not let it disappear into the general maw of the Home Office?

Lord Bassam of Brighton

My Lords, I described the volume of the problem for the Home Office: it receives somewhere in the region of 1 million letters per annum. That is a fantastic volume of correspondence. One would like to imagine that pressures on Ministers have eased, but no doubt those pressures are still there. However, that does not excuse any department from producing timely and courteous replies and ensuring that cases are properly followed up. That is the course that the Home Office and all other government departments wish to follow.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury

My Lords, matters are improving slightly. When I started out in the law, a reply came from the taxes office which began: Reverting to yours of some date in 1937"! Does the Minister agree that substance rather than speed is important when replying to correspondence? It is not uncommon these days to have a series of holding letters and to find that several people are dealing with the same issue—for one knows not what reasons.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

My Lords, it is hard for me to speculate on each individual item of correspondence. I do not know the noble Lord's view, but I believe that it is courteous to send at least an acknowledgement of correspondence. One wants to know where the communication is and who is dealing with it. A particular matter may be complex and may require the attention of different parts of a department. In such a case it would be right for the correspondence to be moved around a department. I described a computer-based correspondence tracking system which will enable and aid that process and make it more speedy. There are many examples across government where correspondence is efficiently and effectively dealt with and there are many success stories. I cite the example of the Passport Office, where response is now very swift; indeed, it is a tip-top service.