§ Mr. MeacherTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what proportion of correspondence received by(a) his Department and (b) each of his Department's agencies receives (i) an acknowledgement within five days and (ii) a substantive reply time within 15 days.
§ Mr. HagueCorrespondence to Ministers from hon. Members is registered and an acknowledgement produced on the day of receipt. The departmental target for substantive replies is 20 working days. This has been achieved in 77 per cent. of cases this year to date.
Letters to Ministers from members of the public are not acknowledged due to the large number involved. The target reply is again 20 working days.
The chief executive of the Benefits Agency—BA—tells me that all correspondence received from hon. Members is acknowledged within 24 hours of receipt. The latest available figures show that 51 per cent. of all such letters receive a substantive reply within 15 working days and 84 per cent. within 20 working days.
The BA charter sets out a commitment to reply to correspondence from customers within 10 working days. If only a partial reply is possible within that time, the customer should be told how long it will be before a comprehensive reply can be made.
Of the replies sent by the chief executive of the Contributions Agency—CA—to hon. Members, 46 per cent. were sent within 15 working days and 70 per cent. in 20 working days.
1060WJustice ruled that survivors' benefits in occupational pension schemes should be equal for men and women. It also confirmed that its earlier ruling in the Barber case, requiring equality in occupational pensions, applied only in respect of pensionable service after 17 May 1990. In the second case, the court upheld the validity of national time limits for payment of benefit relating to periods before the date of claim. In the third case, the court held that in certain circumstances occupational "bridging pensions" could be paid to men between the ages of 60 and 65.