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Ministers' Correspondence with Members of Parliament

Monitoring and the Annual Report

47. The Cabinet Office publishes an annual report detailing departmental performance in the handling of Members' correspondence. The Report includes details of:

• Departmental targets for replying to ministerial correspondence;
• Volume of correspondence received (from MPs and Peers);
• % of replies within targets.

48. Departments should ensure robust systems are in place to monitor the handling of correspondence for internal purposes and for the Cabinet Office annual report.

49. The annual report is based on substantive replies only. Therefore when compiling their annual return departments should not include details of acknowledgements, holding replies or correspondence that has been transferred to other departments.

50. Future annual reports will only include departmental performance on the handling of correspondence that is not considered as an FOI request. Therefore departments should only provide information on the handling of non-FOI requests when submitting their annual returns.

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