§ Sir Antony Buckasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will make a statement on his Department's performance in responding to requests for information from the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and on the time taken by his Department to respond to such requests.
§ Mr. FowlerMany of these cases require detailed and scrupulous inquiry into complicated circumstances but nevertheless, we accept that delays have been too long. We propose to take steps to speed up the handling of cases in local and regional offices and to utilise additional staff time on the headquarters function of examining replies to the Parliamentary Commissioner.