§ Mr. SandersTo ask the Prime Minister what is his office's average response time to correspondence from members of the public; and how such response times are monitored. [48672]
§ The Prime MinisterIt is not possible for me to deal personally with all of the letters I receive and I must therefore refer most of them to the Department with responsibility for the policy or the matter in question. We ask Departments to respond within their targets for dealing with correspondence.
One of the six service standards for central government requires Departments to set a target for responding to letters from members of the public and to publish information on their performance. A report on the performance of the main Departments against the six standards is being prepared and will be made available to the House shortly.
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§ Mr. Ian BruceTo ask the Prime Minister what is the e-mail address of his Office's Ministerial Correspondence Unit.[49822]
§ The Prime Minister[holding answer 13 July 1998]Downing Street receives approximately 7,000 items of correspondence a week from the general public—approximately three times as much as received prior to the General Election. The majority receive a response from my office or the relevant Government Department. There are no plans at present to introduce a dedicated e-mail address for the 10 Downing Street Correspondence Unit. However, the Government are currently considering policy on providing Ministers with e-mail addresses. Number 10's allocation of an e-mail address will be in line with this policy once it has been finalised.
The 10 Downing Street website (www.number-10.gov.uk) also provides five discussion fora where the public can post their views on matters of Government policy.