§ Mr. SandersTo ask the President of the Board of Trade what is her Department's average response time to correspondence from members of the public; and how such response times are monitored. [48667]
§ Mrs. BeckettInformation on the average time taken by my Department to respond to correspondence from members of the public could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. One of the six service standards for central Government requires Departments to set a target for responding to letters from the public. All management units in my Department are required to have systems to monitor performance against this standard. I understand that a report on the performance of the main Departments against the six standards in 1997–98 is being prepared for the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and will be made available to the House shortly.