To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the target time is for responding to hon. Members' correspondence on immigration and asylum representations made on behalf of constituents; how often that target is met; and what steps she is taking to reduce the response time.
Answered on
8 June 2022
The Department works to a target of responding to 95% of Hon. Members written correspondence within 20 working days.
Performance has been impacted by a significant increase in the volume of correspondence received, including the unprecedented amount of correspondence about the situation in Afghanistan and more recently in Ukraine.
The Department continues to prioritise enquiries related to Ukraine and recognises that it has not been able to meet service standard in other cases. MPs can escalate urgent and compassionate cases via the team at Portcullis House.
The Department continues to recruit additional resources and has recently been loaned staff from non-operational areas to assist in clearing the backlogs. A detailed recovery plan to support a return to an acceptable service standard is being prepared.
Data about intake and performance in answering Hon. Members correspondence are published quarterly with the latest Quarter available at:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-q1-2022