§ Mr. DevlinTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) if he will take steps to ensure that the time taken to deal with hon. Members' correspondence is reduced to 21 days within the next six months;
(2) if he will set targets for dealing with hon. Members' correspondence more expeditiously;
(3) if he will issue guidance to hon. Members as to the manner in which they can assist inquiries to his Department to be dealt with more quickly.
§ Mr. Peter LloydGuidance is issued regularly to those of our staff who are involved in preparing draft replies to right hon. and hon. Members' correspondence. This guidance indicates the high priority to be given to this work. The volume of correspondence is, however, large. In the last year we received 41,500 letters concerning social security. We recognise the importance which, rightly, hon. Members attach to the quality and speed of the service provided to them and we, therefore, monitor and seek to improve it. In many of the instances in which there is a significant delay before we are able to give a substantive reply this is because it is necessary to contact one of our local or central offices, or a local authority, for further information on individual constituents. For this reason, it was suggested to all hon. Members in September 1987 that they take up directly with local offices complaints and queries relating to the circumstances of individual constituents. That advice emphasised that it was not intended to diminish ministerial responsibility; in particular, it was accepted that hon. Members would want to raise with Ministers any cases where they felt dissatisfied with the results of their inquiries at local level or which raised general issues of policy or perhaps serious complaints about local administration or conduct. I am pleased to endorse that advice.