More complaints please! - Public Administration Committee Contents


4  Ministerial correspondence

56. Members of Parliament (MPs) pursue complaints about Government on behalf of their constituents by writing to ministers. In 2005, the Cabinet Office produced guidance for handling ministerial correspondence, which set out general principles to be adopted by ministers and ministerial offices when responding to correspondence from Members of both the House of Commons and House of Lords, MEPs and Members of the devolved assemblies:

    All departments should set targets for replying to correspondence from MPs. These targets (which may be different to the targets set for other types of correspondence) will be published in the annual correspondence report co-ordinated by the Cabinet Office. Individual departments' targets for routine correspondence from MPs should be a maximum of 20 working days. Departments should consider setting themselves more challenging targets.[69]
    Box 4: Cabinet Office guidance on Ministerial Correspondence: Examples of how to handle correspondence[70]

    Substantive replies:

    "Departments must ensure that all replies to letters from MPs are of the highest quality-accurate, clear and helpful".

    Confidentiality:

    "MPs may write to departments about personal matters relating to their constituents and/or attaching confidential information that relates to them or other matters. Where this is the case departments should treat correspondence with great care to ensure that confidentiality is not broken. Only those who have a direct policy interest should have access to the papers/information and account should be taken of the basis on which the confidential information was provided".

    Email correspondence:

    "Some MPs prefer to correspond by e-mail [...]Replies should be in the form of an e-mail or in the form requested by the MP unless it is more convenient to write to the Member concerned, for example, if there are various attachments [...] MPs who send e-mails direct to officials should not expect a Ministerial reply".

57. The guidance also refers to an annual report by the Cabinet Office on departmental performance in the handling of correspondence from MPs. However, in response to a written question from Mr William Cash MP in February 2013 about correspondence from MPs, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, the Rt Hon Francis Maude MP, said:

    Individual Departments are responsible for the effective and efficient handling of correspondence received in accordance with the principles set out in the Cabinet Office guidance.[71]

58. PASC wrote to all MPs in June 2013 in order to examine how constituents' casework and complaints referred by MPs to Ministers and Whitehall civil servants were handled, and whether departments were adhering to Cabinet Office guidance. Feedback suggested that there is little consistency in how different departments receive, acknowledge and respond to correspondence. Opinion on which departments performed best and worst varied. One MP said that the Department for Work and Pensions was particularly poor in respect of turn-around times, but another said that they had found the Department "particularly good at answering technical questions" regarding the circumstances of constituents.[72]

59. There was a general consensus that correspondence was not always replied to within the appropriate timescales. One MP noted that ministers were not replying "consistently" within 20 working days as set out in the 2005 Cabinet Office guidance, while another said that "my estimate is that about 80% are responded to in six weeks and 20% need a chase up". One MP highlighted the impact of these delays:

    [...] excessive delays in response times, loss of correspondence, and requirement to chase up do not encourage constituents to have confidence in the system, meaning that they are less likely to accept the substance of the response.[73]

60. The guidance is clear that responses should be "accurate, clear and helpful". This raises the question about how justified it is for ministers to refer correspondence to another body or delegated authority, such as an NHS Trust. Reference was made to occasions when departments wanted to pass on a complainant's information to the team or agency they were complaining about. Some MPs felt that this should be at the permission of the complainant, rather than at the discretion of the department, and that correspondence that needed to be shared with, or sent to, another department resulted in unnecessary time delays. One MP, for example, said:

    We had correspondence sent to DfT and transferred to HMT that took from August 2012-February 2013 to be dealt with despite repeated chasing.[74]

61. Mr Cash made specific reference to ministerial correspondence in respect of the failings at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Hospital Trust and the complaints he had raised with the Secretary of State for Health on behalf of his constituents. In a House of Commons debate on 5 March 2014 he highlighted the importance of the Cabinet Office guidance and said that Members were "entitled to receive a personal letter" in response to their letters but that this "did not happen in all instances when matters were raised with regard to Stafford hospital".[75] He also said:

    I was glad to note, however, that in the course of evidence to the [Francis] inquiry, the situation moved from what appeared to be resistance to going down that route, to an acceptance that—to paraphrase from the evidence given by the chief executive of the Department of Health—from now on, when a Member of Parliament writes with a letter from a constituent, and explains that things have not gone properly regarding that constituent's health problems, there is a mechanism to ensure that the issue is dealt with properly.[76]

Mr Cash also submitted evidence to this inquiry that made similar comments.

62. Ministerial correspondence is key to the way MPs make complaints on behalf of their constituents. It is vital that ministers themselves see and respond to correspondence in the manner set out in Cabinet Office guidance, to ensure that complaints and concerns are handled without undue delay, and that signs of emerging problems can be quickly identified and acted on. It should be a matter of regret that ministers appeared to pass on correspondence from MPs about the quality of care at Mid Staffordshire Hospital to the Trust concerned, without themselves investigating why these complaints were being made.

63. The Minister for the Cabinet Office should review its 2005 guidance on handling correspondence from Members of Parliament, Members of the House of Lords, MEPs and Members of devolved Assemblies, so that it is explicit that responsibility for responding cannot be delegated—ministers remain responsible for replies to MPs. It should also be explicit that a complaint from an MP should only be transferred to the body concerned or to a third party with the explicit agreement of the MP. This would also include how confidential or personal information should be handled.

64. The Minister for the Cabinet Office should reaffirm the need to adhere to guidance on handling correspondence from Members of Parliament, Members of the House of Lords, MEPs and Members of devolved Assemblies, so that MPs can deliver swift redress for their constituents and that ministers can use the intelligence gathered from correspondence in a timely manner.


69   Cabinet Office, Handling correspondence from Members of Parliament, Members of the House of Lords, MEPs and Members of devolved assemblies (July 2005), p5 Back

70   As above, p9 Back

71   HC Deb, 25 February 2013, col 198W [Commons written answer]  Back

72   Members of Parliaments (PHS 24) Back

73   As above Back

74   As above Back

75   HC Deb, 5 March 2014, col 925 [Commons Chamber] Back

76   HC Deb, 5 March 2014, col 948-949 [Commons Chamber] Back


 
previous page contents next page


© Parliamentary copyright 2014
Prepared 14 April 2014