Departments have improved their timeliness in responding to parliamentary questions, with performance levels at their highest since before the pandemic.
However, concerns have been raised at the continuing decline in the performance of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The House of Commons Procedures Committee published a report today with figures for the 2023-24 parliamentary session, which shows that overall, departments overall met and exceeded the requirement to respond on time to at least 85% of both "ordinary" and "named-day" questions for the first time since the 2017-19 session.
Responses are deemed to have been provided on time if, for ordinary questions, they are provided within five working days of being tabled, and for named-day questions, they are provided by the specified date.
Departments overall managed to answer 92% of ordinary questions and 88% of named-day questions on time, compared to 88% and 82% respectively in 2022-23.
However, the Procedure Committee’s report pointed out that this came alongside a marked decrease in the number of questions being tabled per sitting day. The average number of written questions tabled across all answering bodies per sitting day during the 2023-24 session was 274, down from 346 per day in the 2022-23 session: a 21% decrease.
It said it is therefore not possible to determine whether this progress has been achieved as a result of improved resourcing and/or processes within departments, or because departments have managed better with the lower volume of questions tabled, but that it hopes it is the former.
Defra’s continued performance decline ‘deeply concerning’
Defra answered just 60% of ordinary questions within five days and 20% of named-day questions by the specified date, a cross-government low.
Writing to environment secretary Steve Reed, Procedure Committee chair Cat Smith said this was “deeply concerning”.
The committee previously raised concerns about the department’s performance in the 2022-23 parliamentary session, after it answered 69% of ordinary and 60% of named-day questions on time, which was also a government-wide low.
The then-environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, told the committee that this was due to “performance and operational issues”. She assured the committee that measures had been put in place “to ensure a sustained and timely performance”.
Today’s Procedure Committee report says Defra’s performance improved during the latter half of the 2022-23 session, but fell sharply again during the first half of the 2023-24 session. It said the drop in performance occurred despite a slight decrease in the average number of written parliamentary questions per day compared to the previous session.
In Smith’s letter to Reed, sent on 11 December, she asked the environment secretary what steps he has taken to improve the department’s performance.
In his responseon 7 January, Reed said: “I agree that performance below expectations under the last government was unacceptable, given it obstructs transparency and scrutiny.”
He said that since his appointment as environment secretary, he has issued a PQ guide; asked officials to improve the quality of drafts “to limit the need for revisions which inevitably take time and can cause delays”; asked for the process for clearing draft responses to be streamlined; and widened the oversight of the process by his political team.
Reed said he has also asked his parliamentary team to deliver a series of talks and sessions for staff to outline the importance he places on parliamentary work in general, and on parliament holding government to account.
“I will continue building on the work we began in July to deliver high-quality work and push performance higher,” Reed added.
How did each department perform?
The table below breaks down the performance by department in alphabetical order.
The best-performing departments were the Prime Minister's Office, Scotland Office and Wales Office, which all scored 100% for both ordinary and named-days questions, although these departments were among those that received the lowest numbers of questions.
Other departments performing well include the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Department for Transport (both achieving 99% for both types of question); the Department for Work and Pensions (99% and 98%); and the Treasury (100% and 95%). These departments all received a much higher numbers of questions.
The Department for Health and Social Care and Ministry of Defence, meanwhile, received and answered significantly more questions than the other 21 departments listed in the report. Both managed to achieve the 85% target for ordinary questions but did not manage it for named-day questions.
Smith said: “It is encouraging to see the response rate to WPQs improving in the last parliamentary session, as it shows that government departments recognise the importance of transparency and scrutiny by parliament. We also welcome the new government’s commitment to maintaining high answering performance.”
She said the Procedure Committee will continue to monitor the performance of all departments closely and expects to see a “marked improvement” in this parliamentary session for some departments but warned that “ensuring the timeliness of responses should not come at the expense of detail”.
Smith added that the committee will be putting a “particular focus” on the quality of responses during this parliament.