Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what data their Department holds on the average response time to written parliamentary questions in the last six months; and what assessment they have made of the adequacy of that response time.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of correspondence from Members of Parliament, including written parliamentary questions (WPQs). The Department runs tailored training sessions for Departmental colleagues specific to WPQs to improve the quality and timeliness of responses.
All Departments also have access to regular training led by the Parliamentary Capability Team through the Government Campus.
The below table provides the percentage of WPQs answered on time, and the average number of working days to respond, which were received from Members of the House of Commons and due for answer between 1 March 2023 and 31 August 2023.
Total WPQs answered | % WPQs answered on time | Average working days to respond |
1,576 | 86.3% | 6.1 |
Footnotes:
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps their Department is taking to improve response times to written parliamentary questions.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of correspondence from Members of Parliament, including written parliamentary questions (WPQs). The Department runs tailored training sessions for Departmental colleagues specific to WPQs to improve the quality and timeliness of responses.
All Departments also have access to regular training led by the Parliamentary Capability Team through the Government Campus.
The below table provides the percentage of WPQs answered on time, and the average number of working days to respond, which were received from Members of the House of Commons and due for answer between 1 March 2023 and 31 August 2023.
Total WPQs answered | % WPQs answered on time | Average working days to respond |
1,576 | 86.3% | 6.1 |
Footnotes:
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Leader of the House:
To ask the Leader of the House, what steps she is taking to help ensure that Members' requests for assistance on ministerial correspondence are addressed in a timely manner.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
Parliament has a right to hold Ministers to account and, as Leader of the House, I expect Government Ministers to respond quickly and effectively to Members’ correspondence. I will continue to drive that message and I encourage members who get an unsatisfactory response to write to me and I will take this up for any Member who does not get a proper response.
I recognise that my office and I have a role to play in making representations to Government on behalf of the House of Commons, and have taken a number of actions:
The Parliamentary Capability Team in the Cabinet Office also provides training on managing parliamentary work to civil servants of all departments and grades, including blended learning courses on ministerial correspondence and tailored workshops for Senior Civil Servants. Since April 2022, 1,160 civil servants from across government have attended training provided by the Parliamentary Capability Team on managing Ministerial Correspondence and Written Parliamentary Questions.
As per the Cabinet Office’s Guide to Handling Correspondence (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/handling-government-correspondence-guidance), departments and agencies should aim to respond to correspondence within a 20-working day target deadline. The Cabinet Office published data on this for 2022 for all government departments on GOV.UK in March 2023, and will be publishing data for Q1 and Q2 2023 shortly. The 2022 data can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-on-responses-to-correspondence-from-mps-and-peers-2022.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Leader of the House:
To ask the Leader of the House, what discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on ensuring that their Departments meet deadlines for replying to Members’ correspondence.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
Parliament has a right to hold Ministers to account and, as Leader of the House, I expect Government Ministers to respond quickly and effectively to Members’ correspondence. I will continue to drive that message and I encourage members who get an unsatisfactory response to write to me and I will take this up for any Member who does not get a proper response.
I recognise that my office and I have a role to play in making representations to Government on behalf of the House of Commons, and have taken a number of actions:
The Parliamentary Capability Team in the Cabinet Office also provides training on managing parliamentary work to civil servants of all departments and grades, including blended learning courses on ministerial correspondence and tailored workshops for Senior Civil Servants. Since April 2022, 686 civil servants from across government have attended training provided by the Parliamentary Capability Team on managing Ministerial Correspondence and Written Parliamentary Questions.
In addition, the Cabinet Office Guide to Handling Correspondence, which is available on Gov.uk, includes guidance for civil servants on how to handle correspondence from MPs, Peers, members of the devolved legislatures and members of the public (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/handling-government-correspondence-guidance).
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of (a) ordinary and (b) named-day written questions their Department answered on time in 2022.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of correspondence from Members of Parliament, including written parliamentary questions. The below table provides the proportion of (a) ordinary and (b) named day written parliamentary questions answered by the Department in 2022.
PQ type | Answered | Answered on time |
PQ-Ordinary | 2,649 | 2131 (77%) |
PQ-Named | 1,217 | 939 (80%) |
Total | 3,866 | 3,070 (79%) |
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the time taken to respond to (a) written parliamentary questions and (b) correspondence from Members of Parliament.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office is working to improve our performance in answering written parliamentary questions. For details on this continuous improvement I refer the Hon Member to the letter sent from Home Office to the Procedure Committee dated 21 June 2022 https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/23223/documents/169558/default/.
The Department works to a target of responding to 95% of Hon. Member’s written correspondence within 20 working days.
Performance against target has been impacted by an unprecedented increase in MPs queries prompted by successive global cases and a surge in HM Passport Office applications following the pandemic.
The Home Office has since implemented a correspondence recovery plan and as a result, the Home Office is due to return to its 20-day service standard in the week commencing 16 January 2023.
Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Answer of 25 April 2022 to Question 151069 on Department for Education: Parliamentary Questions, if she will provide this information for the 2022-23 Parliamentary Session to 30 November 2022.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of correspondence from Members of Parliament, including written parliamentary questions (WPQs).
The below table provides the average number of working days that it has taken for the Department to respond to ‘Named Day’ and ‘Ordinary’ WPQs during the 2022/23 Parliamentary Session up to 30 November 2022. It also includes the totals received and the percentage of questions answered within their respective parliamentary deadlines.
2022/23 Parliamentary Session | WPQ type | WPQ received & due for answer | % answered on time | Average working days to respond |
10/05/2022 – 30/11/22 | Named Day WPQs | 589 | 67.6% | 5.7 |
Ordinary WPQs | 1,402 | 75.0% | 7.0 | |
Total | 1,991 | 72.8% | - |
Footnotes:
1. Data is based on the number of ‘Named Day’ and ‘Ordinary’ WPQs received and answered by the Department for Education from the start of the 2022/23 Parliamentary Session to 30 November 2022
2. MPs may table questions, specifying the date on which they should receive an answer (a Named Day WPQ). MPs must give a minimum of two days notice. However, they may also pick a date further in the future. This can impact the average number of working days to respond
3. Recess periods can impact the due date for answering WPQs, this will also have an impact on the average number of working days to respond. During this period, the House rose for Summer recess, Conference recess, November recess and the Official Mourning Period
4. These figures do not include 93 Ordinary WPQs that were not answered during the Official Mourning Period, as advised by the Table Office
5. An average length of time to respond is not given for the overall totals.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Leader of the House:
To ask the Leader of the House, what work the Parliamentary Capability Team has been doing with government departments to ensure timely and quality responses to Written Parliamentary Questions and correspondence from MPs.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
The Parliamentary Capability Team (PCT) provides training on managing parliamentary work to civil servants of all departments and grades. As part of this work, it offers blended learning courses on Written Parliamentary Questions and Ministerial Correspondence, and tailored workshops for Senior Civil Servants (SCS) on these processes. Since April 2020, this training has been attended by 2,303 civil servants. The PCT also supports departmental parliamentary teams to develop training on department-specific processes for this work.
Over the course of the Summer recess, the former Deputy Leader of the House of Commons also visited multiple government departments with the PCT and spoke about the importance of departments providing full and timely responses to Written Parliamentary Questions and correspondence from Members of Parliament.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps their Department is taking to reduce the time taken to respond to (a) written parliamentary questions and (b) correspondence from Members of Parliament.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of Parliamentary Questions (PQs) and correspondence, and officials seek to provide the highest level of service.
All departments have access to regular training led by the Parliamentary Capability Team through the Government Campus.
To complement the work of the Parliamentary Capability Team, Defra provides tailored training and advice for Defra staff specific to PQs and correspondence to drive up the quality and timeliness of our responses.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what steps their Department is taking to reduce the time taken to respond to (a) written parliamentary questions and (b) correspondence from Members of Parliament.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
All government departments have access to regular training led by the Parliamentary Capability Team through the Government Campus. The Attorney General’s Office attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of Parliamentary Questions (PQs) and correspondence and remains committed to providing the highest level of service. Between the period of May to July inclusive, the Attorney General’s Office answered 74% of written Parliamentary Questions on time. For the same period, 97% of all Ministerial correspondence was answered on time. |