To expect my Constituency MP to respond to emails?

[AlexaShutUp]

I wrote to my MP in January. My email was very polite, measured and reasonable. She sent me a generic holding response. I have since sent her two very polite chasing emails. I have had nothing back, other than the automated acknowledgement of receipt. I can see from comments on Twitter that other constituents are also waiting for responses from her on a variety of issues.

AIBU to think that this is unacceptable? My previous MP (from the same party) was a very good constituency MP, and even though I absolutely disagreed with her politics, I knew that I could always rely on her to provide a prompt and personalised response to any communications, even when she had significant ministerial responsibilities to juggle.

The current MP is a backbencher without any additional responsibilities, so I expect her to consider serving her constituents and responding to their concerns as a priority, but it seems that she cannot be arsed. She does, however, seem to have the time to post inane and trivial stuff on twitter.

AIBU to expect a response after 3 months?

I usually get replies from mine within a week or two.

Yes, I understand all that. My point is that the MP is responsible for managing her office and for ensuring that correspondence is dealt with appropriately. I don't care how that happens, but in my view, she needs to ensure that it does happen. And she is failing in that duty at present.

I wrote to my conservative mp in January and heard nothing.
I resent the letter following up and heard nothing.

My last email was fairly short and to the point - do you still have confidence in Boris Johnson as a leader? Yes or no
It would have taken 30secs to hit reply and the response.
The fact that she couldn't be bothered tells me everything I need to know about her.

Yanbu, that's their bloody job.

We had years of two excellent MPs. Nothing ever too trivial for them to deal with. Always replied.
Now have one who never replies to emails, letters etc.. Spends most of his time in London. Out for his career and no care for the constituents. Utterly selfcentred and useless. Only time he appears is for photo opportunities to make himslef look good. Sooner we can get rid of him and have someone who really cares, the better.

It's the MP's staff, not the MP. I worked for a couple of MPs years back. One was very into constituency work and one wasn't interested so we often didn't reply. They're pretty busy.

Exactly this! One of the MPs I worked for hadn't had decent staff for the 17 months since the election - I cleared the backlog in a month.

Their job isn't to respond to thousands of emails, it's to be your representative in parliament.

The amount of mindless shite MPs receive daily is staggering. The most annoying was when people couldn't be bothered to write something themselves and instead chucked their postcode in to whatever 38 degrees were "campaigning" about at the time, so you received hundreds of identical emails - and then people were annoyed they received the same reply back.

I think the only issue my local MP cares about is when she will get a Minsterial role.
She's in one of the safest Tory seats in the country - the local toffs and rich farmers would vote for a donkey if it had a blue rosette.

The civil service don’t work for MPs the run government departments. Mps staff are directly employed by the MP.

This! The fact that some people think fireing off a 38 degrees campaign type email is actual political engagement.

It's a shame if they regard the legitimate concerns of the people who elect them as mindless shite, but tbh, that says more about their attitude towards their constituents than the content of what they receive.

My email was not actually a cut and paste job. Not that I think it should really make a difference - some people find it difficult to articulate their thoughts clearly and like a bit of help with finding the right words.

As for representing their constituents in Parliament, I am not convinced that they can do this effectively without actually engaging with the people who they represent. I rather suspect that some of them just don't give a toss once they're elected though.

I write from time to time to my MP and the MPfor the neighbouring constituency where I work.
As far as mine is concerned, normal back bencher no extra responsibilities, I usually get an acknowledgment and then a couple of weeks later a generic reply about the issue of the day.Having said that , a few months ago , I did receive a personal reply where the MP had gone to a colleague for information.The reply arrived months after my letter but I was grateful nonetheless.
Neighbouring MP , has a non cabinet but high profile role, but always replies with what seems like a personal reply within days.It makes one feel heard at least.
Both seats are utterly safe conservative seats.

Their job isn't to ignore their constituents and do whatever they damn well please, which is what most of them appear to be doing. They need to remember that the only reason they are in parliament is because their constituents put them there in order to represent their interests; so the least they can do is to respond in a timely fashion when a constituent writes to them.

I'm sure they do receive a lot of dross, but it is not for some paperclip-fiddler to decide whether or not a constituent's letter or email is worthy of being put before the MP.

Oh and by the way, the amount of mindless shite my MP comes out with on a daily basis is staggering.

@chisanunian well actually it is precisely for the "paper clip fiddler" to decide what the MP responds to. That's how parliamentary offices work. No need to show such contempt to underpaid graduates.

@quitefranklyabsurd exactly. People don't have a clue how the country is run - civil servants do not work for backbench MPs.

You always get the usual suspects whose names you recognise and put in the "oh do fuck off" pile. You need help with a medical / housing / education / visa issue then yes, of course the MP's office should respond and assist. You want to send a gotcha "do you believe in Boris Johnson?" or a cut and paste job? Straight in the bin.

That's illuminating.
Given that I have my opinions on these matters and I want someone in parliament who represents my opinions, then it's important that I get a reply.
If the MP in question differs on my viewpoint on this then it goes in the cons column for the next election. If they agree then it's a pro.
On contentious issues that are likely to cause a surge of emails, how hard is it to draft something saying that they think x because of y.
They then don't need to read the email, their staff will know what to say.

As an unelected person, what gives you the right to prevent the public from reaching their Mp?
If staff are preventing the MPs from seeing correspondence from their constituents then we have a problem with this level of politics as leaving anyone unchallenged leads to an arrogance that comes from being out of touch.
Maybe this is why some MPs are so out of touch.

Yes I know
That's why I made the difference between the MP's staff sending the correspondence onto the relevant civil service dept. A pp said she worked for an MP dealing with correspondence. I worked for the civil service and spent some of my time answering MPs' letters which are forwarded from their staff.

Apols - I misunderstood. As an ex mps staffer I too would have sent you letters!

I don’t think staff stop mps seeing constituent correspondence but without us you would never actually get a reply to your enquiry be it about the mps thoughts on the prime minister or something more serious/life threatening like eviction or needing a help with the nhs.

I did not elect the 'paper clip fiddler'. It is not for them to decide what is or is not important. My constituency elected my MP (I didn't vote for her, but nevertheless) and therefore one would expect them to respond to their constituents' concerns and raise questions in the House (or do some arse-kicking elsewhere) as necessary.

My MP doesn't tend to employ underpaid graduates in her constituency office, she has a habit of employing family members.

When I ring my doctor's surgery and ask to see a doctor, it is not for the receptionist to decide whether or not my condition requires an appointment, because however good a receptionist they are, they are not medically trained. That decision should be taken by someone medically qualified.

Not Ruth Cadbury by any chance? I've been trying to get her office to support me for months on a CMS complaint. I sometimes get responses, sometimes don't. It's exhausting and I'm doing all the legwork myself. I've now asked Ruth to just refer it to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman as her office is providing no value whatsoever.

I've never contacted an MP before and I feel really let down.

The combined forces of Johnson and Cummings have meant that I've written to my MP three times over the last 12 months, not something I've done before. I didn't get a response to my last email, which is unusual for the MP and his office. It wasn't a cut and paste either, I was emphasising (yet again) that only the MP's can get rid of Johnson.

MP promised to respond to my second email when they had the Sue Gray report. So not long to go on that one, and they did send a holding email in the meantime.

@chisanunian if your MP has to read and respond to every piece of correspondence from religious nuts to conspiracy theorists to vile abuse to genuine letters about housing and health etc, where on earth would they find the time to raise questions in parliament or "do some arse kicking elsewhere"?

What the paper clip fiddler probably did was bundle all the correspondence up for a discussion on the one or two times a week they get to go through it with the MP (because the rest of the time the MP might be in the chamber, doing things in the constituency, meeting with lobby groups, working on a select committee...) and they will have worked through it in stages:

1. Housing/immigration/benefits etc problems. This will go to a caseworker who specialises in these kind of issues, and they work incredibly hard on it.
2. Generic campaigns - unless there is a particular constituency angle, this will usually get the form letter that is provided by the central comms team. A good MP will want to know what kind of issues are being raised & how much, but won't be able to provide a custom response to each of them.
3. Specific policy questions that aren't part of a wider campaign. Could get a response anywhere from "Thank you for raising this issue, I will be sure to keep monitoring it" to a specific commitment to raise it with the appropriate department or minister. If they do this, the MP themselves often won't get a response for several months, which then gets passed on to the constituent. On some policy issues, there might not be a standard line from the central party yet, so MP offices will delay replying until one is provided.
4. Local issues - these are often most prioritised because its deemed to be the things that will make the biggest impact on constituents lives. At the top of the list for replies, and often the reply includes an invitation to meet at a constituency day or even at the HoC.
5. The green ink brigade. Truly insane rambles of the conspiracy theorists. These will just get a polite "Thank you for raising this."

The amount of correspondence MPs get is insane. When I was in an MPs office there were 4 permanent staff members (PA, caseworker and 2 policy guys who supported his select committee work) and 2 or 3 full time interns, and even then it could be a struggle to have the inbox clear at the end of each week.

The same thing with my MP and again she seems to be more concerned with posting inane tweets.

So for those of us who are in this predicament, would the suggestion and idea to take forward not be - for every letter/email communicated to an MP, to publish it as an open letter on a blog/website?

Further to that, a main website could be set up to publish all the letters/emails to our respective MPs, so that the public can judge for themselves whether parliament is failing the nation and its people as a whole.

Ours doesn't - she's all over twitter saying how much she is doing for the Refugee's but literally will hasn't responded to e-mails I have sent it about it. I know she hasn't responded to other e-mails that constituents have sent about that and other things as well.

It's really poor particularly as she regularly says how she is communicating with everyone.