How quickly does your MP respond to letters, emails and other communications?
That’s the question asked by one Examiner reader after she wrote to her local MP and then checked the result against a website.
The site, www.writetothem.com , analyses MPs’ response rates.
Top of the league is Colne Valley MP Jason McCartney , who answered 96% of 134 messages – up from 93% last year. Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman comes in with a response rate of 55% from 98 messages, up from 47%.
Dewsbury MP Paula Sherriff , elected in 2015, is at 28% from 118 messages with Calder Valley MP Craig Whittaker is trailing with 22% from 215 messages, down from 50% in 2014/15.
But some Kirklees’ Parliamentarians say the site’s figures are not representative of their day-to-day postbag and the high level of communications received from constituents.
Ms Sherriff said: “Some 98% of emails I’ve received via ‘writetothem.com’ are asking for views on government policy. Replies for these can take between two to three weeks.
“My staff and I work hard to ensure that we swiftly respond to those who need help most. This often means resolving the urgent problems people are having with disability benefits, schooling, housing or hospitals.
“We’ve responded to over 2,500 enquiries in 2015/16 and the ‘writetothem.com’ stats are based only on a tiny fraction of these - just 2.6%. These figures are not at all representative of this.”
Mr Sheerman said the site’s messages were not average constituency questions.
“Since January 1 I have had 497 proper constituency emails about individual issues and we have a fast turnaround of five days. We have a very high volume and less than 5% comes through this website.
“What they are measuring is something totally different to the proper workday stuff that we deal with. We prioritise real emails from people about real issues.”
Mr Whittaker said: “My office gets over 60,000 ‘Campaign’ emails (worded exactly the same on the same subject) a year from campaigning websites, which costs huge amounts of money in time and letters to respond to.
“About two years ago we decided that rather than reply to those individual 60,000 pieces of correspondence, which are identical, we put the reply under the ‘Campaigns’ tab on our website.
“Of course if constituents write in with cases or personal correspondence, we do deal directly with them.”
Mr McCartney said he understood the website’s statistics reflected individual emails from constituents.
“These emails are from constituents and that’s why I prioritise responding. We try to go to bed every night having replied to everyone. Big template email campaigns are a different issue.”
