§ Mr. MeacherTo ask the President of the Board of Trade what proportion of correspondence received by(a) his Department and (b) each of his Department's agencies receives (i) an acknowledgement within five days and (ii) a substantive reply within 15 days.
§ Mr. HeseltineMinisters in my Department have a 10-day, rather than a 15-day, target for sending a substantive reply to ministerial correspondence. The heads of my Department's agencies have the same target for ministerial correspondence from hon. Members which is delegated to them for reply. In the first 10 months of this year, performance against the target was as follows:
Percentage of substantive replies in 10 days Per cent. Department of Trade and Industry 65 Companies House 46 Insolvency Service 96 Radiocommunications 100 Accounts Services Agency 100 Export Credits Guarantee Department 83 National Physical Laboratory 100 Patent Office 100 Other agencies not listed did not have any correspondence from hon. Members delegated to them for reply during the period.
My Department does not at present send acknowledgements, but hopes to introduce such a procedure shortly.