10 Co-operation with Parliament
MPs' correspondence
98. The Agency has introduced MP Account Managers
to provide a faster response to MPs' enquiries and has set itself
service standards for completing "further action referrals"
and answering MPs' emails.
99. The Agency aims to complete 90% of further action
referrals sent by MPs within 10 working days.
| No. received
| No. completed within 10 working days
| % completed within 10 working days
|
| Q1 2011
| 593 |
516 | 87
|
| Q2 2011
| 676 |
593 | 88
|
| Q3 2011
| 660 |
578 | 88
|
| Q4 2011
| 688 |
609 | 89
|
Table 10: % of further action referrals completed
within service standards
100. We note that the Agency came within a few
percentage points of achieving its target for completing actions
in response to referrals by MPs in every quarter of 2011, and
that performance is slowly improving. We hope that the Agency
will continue to provide this high standard of service.
The Agency has also committed to answering 95% of
MPs' emails within 20 working days.
| No. received
| No. answered within 20 working days
| % answered within 20 working days
|
| Q2 2011
| 3,313
| 2,713
| 82 |
| Q3 2011
| 3,753
| 3,280
| 87 |
| Q4 2011
| 3,519
| 3,270
| 93 |
Table 11: % of MPs' emails answered within service
standards
101. Constituents often turn to their MP for help
when they feel they have exhausted other avenues. An approach
from an MP will therefore often be the conclusion of many months
of wrangling by the constituent in correspondence with the Agency,
trying to resolve their problem. It is important therefore that
the Agency makes every effort to improve its performance and meets
its service standards in this area. Our immigration and asylum
system must be robust but fair and a core component of a fair
system is giving people an answer to their case as soon as possible,
not leaving them to hang on in uncertainty. We welcome the
good progress the Agency has made towards meeting its target of
responding to 95% of e-mails from MPs within 20 working days.
However we emphasise that its responses must contain the information
requested in order to be of value. Otherwise it is simply pushing
the problem further down the line.
Provision of information to this
Committee
102. The way in which the Agency provides us with
information has long been a point of contention. Although the
style and punctuality of their responses have improved from previous
submissions there is still a long way to go.
- Some of the information submitted
to the Committee has been confusing and difficult to analyse because
it has lacked key information that would have put different figures
in context.[68]
- The Agency has consistently missed the deadlines
we set for it and, when submitting its follow up evidence, missed
its deadline extension as well. Late evidence jeopardises the
timeline of our inquiry, putting strain on the Committee's future
programme and inquiry schedule.
- The Agency has been patchy in notifying us when
it will not be able to meet a deadline. On one occasion it gave
us considerable notice and told the Chair. On others it has sent
a non-committal email with no explanation for the delay or expected
date of delivery, with only minutes to go until the deadline.
We find this attitude unacceptable and discourteous.
103. We acknowledge that the Agency is slowly improving
its performance in this area. However the way in which it interacts
with the Committee is not always that of an organisation which,
in the words of its Chief Executive, is striving to be transparent
and open. We want to have a co-operative relationship with the
Agency which is why we are working to identify a consistent set
of key metrics that we will form the bulk of our quarterly information
requests. We hope that the Agency will play its part too.
68 Note: Examples include: inaccurate figures as a
result of a typo, inappropriate data comparisons e.g. quarterly
figures compared to annual and apparent discrepancies between
the same data provided in narrative and in table format with no
contextual explanation to clarify. Back
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