§ Mr. McNamaraTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is(a) the longest, (b) the shortest and (c) the average number of days taken by his Department to acknowledge receipt of letters requesting information under the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information at its (a) London and (b) Belfast office. [131361]
§ Mr. MandelsonThirteen Open Government requests were received by the Belfast office in the period 1 January 1999 to 30 June 2000. The longest time taken to acknowledge these requests was three working days, the shortest was the day of receipt and the average was 1.3 working days.
In the same period, one request was received by the London office. There is no record of that being acknowledged. However, a review of documents, instigated as a result of that request, will be completed shortly and a substantive reply will be provided to my hon. Friend without further delay.