§ Mr. WigleyTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department on how many occasions during the past six months his Department has been unable to reply to letters from hon. Members within one month of receiving them; what assessment he has made of the adequacy of his departmental performance in replying to inquiries by hon. Members; and if he will make a statement. [29595]
§ Mr. StrawBetween 1 September 1997 and 13 February 1998, 5,681 of the 9,948 letters received from hon. Members were either replied to more than 30 days after receipt, or still await a reply after more than 30 days. I am not satisfied with my Department's performance in dealing with replies to hon. Members and I refer the right hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce) on 3 February 1998,Official Report, column 587.
§ Mr. WigleyTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if it is his Department's policy always to answer either by way of an acknowledgement or a substantive reply every letter received from the general 543W public; and on how many occasions during the past six months his Department has found it necessary to reply to members of the general public that it has been unable to trace original letters about which follow-up inquiries are being made. [29552]
§ Mr. StrawIt is my Department's policy to acknowledge or reply to all correspondence received from the general public. I am not able to state how many times over the past six months a reply has been given that an original letter cannot be traced, since at present there are no systems in place to monitor the progress of general correspondence. However, a monitoring system is shortly to be installed as part of a project to improve the handling of correspondence.