The Government received 181,927 individual pieces of correspondence from MPs and peers in 2025, according to Cabinet Office data released in May – almost 500 every day.
While volumes fluctuate from year to year, they remain consistently high, reaching as high as 206,515 in 2023, and could rise further as AI makes drafting correspondence almost effortless.
Much of this incoming traffic comes from members of the public writing to their local MPs. On the receiving end, ministers and civil servants invest significant time responding. As a former civil servant, I drafted around 100 of these responses, on subjects ranging from Brits abroad frustrated with state pension rules to parents anxious about their child's safety on social media.
This mass correspondence system exists to strengthen government accountability and public trust. But in my experience, it is increasingly working against that purpose, prioritising timely responses over meaningful ones. We need a system that rewards genuine engagement with citizens, not just clearing the ongoing backlog.
The problem here isn't a lack of commitment from ministers or civil servants. It is the system itself. It combines an overwhelming volume of correspondence with a one-size-fits-all communications process that prioritises ensuring a response is on record, minimising political and legal risk, over clarity and candour.
The result is the government ingests a huge diversity of circumstances and concerns, including deeply personal stories and hardship, and replies with a generic broadcast of the existing policy on that issue, constructed from a template of pre-authorised lines.
I have seen correspondents send multiple follow-ups, with increasing frustration, to complain that their original question was not answered sufficiently. I assume a larger number of those who write in eventually just shake their heads and move on, their trust in government lowered from the experience.
This status quo does not serve the ministers who put their signature to each letter, nor does it serve civil servants drafting and coordinating. A key milestone for many junior civil servants is when they stop fighting the template and simply use it. Their job isn't really to answer the correspondent's question, it is to produce a response that is approved, defensible and on time.
What can be done?
There are three practical steps the government could take to make the system better:
1. Write with more humanity: Policy and correspondence teams can start doing this immediately and need to be trained more effectively on how to do so from the outset. The government cannot deliver good news or promise change to everyone who writes, but replies could be much more empathetic and validate people’s concerns without increasing risk.
2. Start measuring what matters: The timeliness of responses is the only metric in the Cabinet Office’s annual transparency data. As a result, improving timeliness is what departments prioritise, such as using AI to help draft responses more efficiently. AI has an important role to play, but if the system rewards efficiency over meaningful engagement, it will only make the problem worse. The Cabinet Office should update its guidance to help departments measure and improve quality, not just timeliness.
3. Experiment with different participatory methods: A more radical question to ask is whether written letters are the right medium for a meaningful dialogue between government and the public. Other approaches, such as inviting correspondents to periodic workshops, enabling open discussions for them to share their experiences, could be more effective.
The new cabinet secretary’s review promised to strengthen public accountability, pride and trust. Refocusing the correspondence system on its public purpose would be a good place to start, and a clear signal that the government is serious about building a new, stronger relationship with the public.