§ 74. Mr. John Huntasked the Minister for the Civil Service if he will review the practice by which Departments (a) acknowledge the receipt of letters from hon. Members by means of an individual typewritten reply instead of a standardised acknowledgement card and (b) send interim replies merely indicating that the Minister is not yet in a position to reply; and if he is able to make any assessment of the amount of secretarial time within 257W the Civil Service which has to be devoted to such replies.
§ Mr. ChannonAs my hon. Friend will be aware, many Departments already acknowledge receipt of hon. Members' correspondence with a standard card. I have asked my officials, however, to draw the advantage of adopting this practice to those Departments which have not already done so. Standard cards are not appropriate for interim replies which are intended to convey an explanation of the reason for the delay. An assessment of the time devoted to such replies is not available.