§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what recent assessment she has made of whether the PSA target for 2001–02 for improvement in response time for all letters from hon. Members will be met. [47273]
§ Mr. Morley[holding answer 10 April 2002]: The DEFRA service target is 15 working days. The Department suffered severe disruption last year due to allocating top priority to defeating the foot and mouth epidemic. Furthermore, the sheer volume of correspondence received following the creation of DEFRA had a major impact on the Department's performance, resulting in a large backlog of letters. We have devoted more resources to clearing the backlog and we are making progress in improving response times.
§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what has been the(a) cost and (b) saving from the pursuit of the Department's public service agreement targets in each year since they were introduced; [61041]
(2) what the (a) cost and (b) saving has been from the Department's pursuit of service delivery agreement targets in each year since they were introduced. [61644]
§ Mr. MorleyThe Department's public service agreement sets out the key outcomes it is committed to deliver with the resources provided, and its service delivery agreement sets out the key steps towards delivery of those targets. Every year the Department publishes performance against its targets—including on value for money—and the resources it has used, in its departmental report.