To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average waiting time is for a response to be received from the MP's accounts team; and how many open cases there are as of 11 July 2022.
Answered on
19 July 2022
The Department does not publish average waiting times for substantive responses to correspondence.
Performance against target 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. Actions are being taken to clear backlogs and drive-up performance.
Members can escalate urgent and compassionate cases via the team at Portcullis House or via engagement surgeries with the MP Engagement team.
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: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-q1-2022