Dear Mr Collins

Information Request

Thank you for your e-mail of 17 March, requesting clarification on some of the information I provided in my response to your initial request of 12 February. I again respond as Freedom of Information decision-maker for Vehicles Customer Services.

In answer to your first point, if an item of mail does happen to be mislaid within the Agency, the responsible area would be unaware of the loss until notified (normally by the sender of the mail). There is no automatic process alerting the Agency to a previously received item of mail that had not been processed.

Turning to your second point, the audit procedures relating to post opening areas seek to ensure that the opening and processing of mail is carried out in accordance with agreed instructions. However no system, no matter how robust, is exempt from error. Vehicle Customer Services handles an enormous volume of documents and mail, indeed, last year we handled in excess of 15 million items of mail. In dealing with such large volumes it is somewhat inevitable that a small number of items will go astray.

Yours sincerely

Richard Batchelor

Operations Manager

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