§ Ms HodgeTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what policy and procedure exist for dealing with complaints against his Department by members of the public; when his Department last updated its policy; what time limit and target for dealing with such complaints his Department has; and what follow—up procedure exists where complainants are not satisfied with his Department's response to a complaint; [26214]
(2) what performance indicators and performance targets there are for measuring the performance of his Department in (a) answering letters from members of the public and (b) answering telephone calls from members of the public; how performance is monitored; and what are the latest figures for performance measured against the target set. [26230]
§ Mr. NorrisIn June 1994 the Department launched the "Serving the Public" initiative, developed in response to the citizens charter and designed to improve its service to the public when answering letters, taking telephone calls and handling complaints. Departmental standards and procedures are contained in a leaflet "Serving the Public".
There is a target of 15 working days for responding to letters and complaints from the public. A correspondence monitoring system has been put in place across the Central Transport Group to measure performance. Results for the first quarter of 1995 show that 91.5 per cent. were answered within the 15—day target.
The Department is also currently working on methods of monitoring telephone performance across the whole central transport group. Performance figures for 1994 show that 95 per cent. of all calls to the Department's public inquiry unit were answered within 15 seconds.
44WThe Department has recently reviewed its complaints handling procedures and is currently finalising details to provide for independent arbitration where complainants are not satisfied with the departmental response.