§ Mr. EvansTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the average response time was for responding to departmental correspondence; what percentage of letters took longer than one month for a response; and what percentage took longer than three months for a response in each of the last five years. [37446]
§ Ms HewittFigures broken down in percentages of replies within each of the specified timescales are unavailable. However my department monitors its performance annually by sample for all correspondence (excluding Ministerial) against the Whitehall standard
to answer all correspondence within 15 working days".The latest figure available is for 2000–01 when the department answered 95 per cent. of correspondence within this target. The volume of correspondence was estimated to be 81,726.Figures for previous years were:
Year Per cent. 1997–98 95 1998–99 92 1999–2000 96 My department has a target of answering Ministerial correspondence within 10 days. Information broken down as requested is not available. Figures on departmental performance against targets in responding to Ministerial correspondence are published annually by the Cabinet Office.
The figures published for the last two years for my department's performance against the target of responding to Ministerial correspondence within 10 days are as follows.
590W
Year Per cent. 1998–99 50 1999–2000 60 The figure for this year will be published by the Cabinet Office in due course.