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The House of Commons Procedure Committee has published its latest report monitoring the timeliness of Departments in answering written questions from MPs.

• Read the report conclusions
• Read the full report: Monitoring of written Parliamentary questions: progress report for Session 2015-16

Monitoring of performance

The Committee has found a general increase in the performance of departments across the board. Nine in ten standard questions for written answer are now answered within five sitting days, while over eight in ten priority questions are answered on the day the MP has specified. 

The Committee acknowledges the general improvement in performance by Departments, but notes that some departments — the Home Office, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Energy and Climate Change — were performing well below expectations in the last Session.

The Committee is now able to monitor Departmental performance more regularly, and in the last session invited Home Office and DCMS Ministers to discuss the action taken by their Departments to reduce delays in answering questions tabled by MPs.

Chair's comments

Charles Walker OBE MP, Chair of the Committee, said:

"The overall increase across Departments in timeliness of answering Parliamentary questions is welcome. We nevertheless want to ensure that Departments are not cutting corners on quality to achieve better performance.

"...answering questions on time improved..."

We note that the performance of the Home Office and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in answering questions on time improved following our invitations to Ministers to appear before the Committee.

We appreciate the commitments to improvement given by the Ministers who have appeared before us to explain what they are doing to answer questions more swiftly.

"...a risk that performance may dip..."

In the last fortnight three new Government departments have been created, and there has been the biggest reorganisation of Ministerial teams since the formation of the Coalition Government in 2010. There is evidently a risk that performance may dip as new Ministerial teams bed in.

We are therefore urging Departments to ensure that they have robust structures in place to prioritise the timely and accurate provision of information to MPs in response to written Parliamentary questions.

Ministerial accountability to Parliament through the prompt and accurate answering of Parliamentary questions is vital. We will therefore be monitoring Departmental performance throughout the autumn and will be expecting every Department to maintain or improve the timeliness of its answers."

Data for performance

Summary data for performance in 2015–16 is published in the Committee's report. More extensive tables, with full datasets for performance in 2015–16 and 2014–15 are published on theProcedure Committee inquiry publications page and available as follows:

• WPQ data, Session 2014-15 and 2015-16, Excel version ( XLS 58 KB)
• WPQ data, Session 2014-15 and 2015-16, CSV version ( CSV 7 KB)

Further information

• About Parliament: Select committees
• Visiting Parliament: Watch committees