HC Deb 17 January 2001 vol 361 cc266-7W
Mr. Baker

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy to require all correspondence sent to IND to be acknowledged. [145457]

Mrs. Roche

The Home Office's service delivery agreement for 2001–04, which commits all Home Office directorates, including the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND), to replying to 95 per cent. of public correspondence within 20 working days by the end of 2001–02, does not require that such correspondence also be acknowledged. However, it is the policy of IND's integrated casework directorate to acknowledge the receipt of applications and other casework-related correspondence where an acknowledgement is requested.

Mr. Baker

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many files under the control of IND went missing in each of the last five years; and how many of these subsequently have been found. [145458]

Mrs. Roche

The information is not available in the format requested. At present, out of a total file holding of approximately 4.1 million, 15,855—or less than 0.4 per cent.—are recorded as lost. 7,507 of these have become lost since 1 January 1996 and have not yet come to light.

Many of the files recorded as lost have had new sub-files created on which action has continued.

Mr. Baker

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he is taking to improve the response times of IND to correspondence. [145459]

Mrs. Roche

The Home Office's published service delivery agreement for 2001–04 commits all Home Office Directorates, including the immigration and nationality directorate (IND), to replying to 95 per cent. of public correspondence within 20 working days and 95 per cent. of ministerial correspondence within 15 working days by the end of 2001–02. Improving performance against published targets for dealing with correspondence will be a key aim of the customer communications foundation project, which will form part of the SIRIUS programme for modernising business processes across the Home Office, including IND.

IND has established two dedicated ministerial correspondence units within its integrated casework directorate in order to improve the service provided to MPs on casework-related correspondence.

Mr. Love

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress has been made in the introduction of the casework programme of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate; and if he will make a statement. [144494]

Mrs. Roche

I refer my hon. friend to the first part of my answer to his question on 23 November 2000,Official Report, column 293W.