Ministerial correspondence is an important avenue of communication between the public and government. Commonly, Departments and other public sector agencies are required to reply to such correspondence on behalf of the Government and/or prepare draft responses for their Minister. The public has a reasonable expectation that their questions and comments will be dealt with as quickly as possible, and that the service they receive from Ministers and government agencies are consistent and of high quality.

In 2015, the Department of Premier and Cabinet led an interagency working group to reform how Ministerial correspondence is handled and managed. A set of standards were implemented to improve policies, procedures and practices. These were considered and endorsed by the Secretaries Board. The standards were reviewed in 2019 to ensure currency. Other agencies that may be involved in the handling of Ministerial correspondence (such as statutory bodies and State Owned Corporations) are also encouraged to consider applying these standards where they are involved in handling Ministerial correspondence.

These standards include:

• All Ministers should maintain a web contact form for receipt of electronic correspondence (supported by the Department of Customer Service)

• All Departments should have a correspondence style guide

• All Departments should publish a correspondence handling policy on their website. This should include business rules that outline minimum standards for correspondence handling and processing, including that all routine correspondence is responded to within a maximum of 30 working days of receipt by the agency - noting that the Department of Premier and Cabinet is committed to a 20 working day response time

• All Departments should report on baseline performance in relation to correspondence handling and processing.

Timothy Reardon
Secretary