HC Deb 29 October 2002 vol 391 cc761-2W
Sir Teddy Taylor

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many recorded delivery items addressed to Lunar House, 40 Wellesley Road, Croydon, are missing; and when he will reply to a letter from the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East relating to Mr. and Mrs. Ajaz Khan dated 1 September reference 18156/2. [76611]

Beverley Hughes

This information is not available. Items of recorded delivery post addressed to Lunar House, but not delivered, are the responsibility of the Royal Mail. All recorded delivery items received in Lunar House are logged into a computer database, together with a record of where in the organisation they have been sent.

I wrote to the hon. Member on 18 October about the case of Mr. and Mrs. Khan.

Mr. Green

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the recent performance of the Immigration and Nationality Department Board in answering letters from(a) hon. Members and (b) the public. [76738]

Beverley Hughes

Information on all correspondence received by the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND), is not recorded centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. IND received over 1 million pieces of correspondence during 2001–02, and systems are not yet in place to identify whether responses were given to all categories of correspondence received.

Figures will be available shortly on IND's performance in answering letters from hon. Members from 1 September 2002 and I will write to the hon. Member as soon as these are available.

We are developing measures to record and track all categories of correspondence. The Home Office Customer Communication Foundation Project was suspended last November and has now been replaced by a short term/tactical Correspondence Tracking System (CTS) Project to address the handling of correspondence and the provision of accurate management information. The project is due to begin on 1 November and will be rolled out for operational use over the coming 12 months. IND's ministerial, official and public correspondence are all included in the intended scope of the project. The CTS project is part of a raft of measures to improve IND's customer service delivery which will be developed over the coming year, in which customer communications will feature strongly.