Department for Education: Correspondence

The department attaches great importance to the handling of correspondence from the public and parliamentarians. Correspondence often raises complex and serious concerns, and as a department, we aim to provide high-quality, timely and tailored responses to the points raised.

The department follows the Cabinet Office guidance for handling correspondence, which can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/handling-government-correspondence-guidance. Data on the handling of correspondence from MPs and Peers, split by government departments and agencies, is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/data-on-responses-to-correspondence-from-mps-and-peers. The department does not track the average time to respond to correspondence from the public or members of parliament.

We have put in place a number of actions to improve our response times for correspondence. These include strengthening accountability across senior civil servants, assigning a ministerial champion for correspondence and implementing actions following sharing of best practice across government departments.