Treat official correspondence
This section explains what 'treat official' correspondence is and what happens to it once we receive it. If you email or write to the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary with a specific immigration case or a general immigration enquiry, your enquiry will be sent to us at the UK Border Agency, treat official team. We only respond to correspondence received by our team from these areas.
We aim to answer 'treat official' correspondence within 20 working days of receiving it. We monitor this very closely to ensure you receive a quick response. For further details on our customer service, please see the results of our customer satisfaction survey. All confidential and personal information we receive is protected under the Data Protection Act. We are not permitted to disclose information to third parties, including the progress of an individual's immigration case, without the individual's written consent.
If you need to contact us directly about an immigration enquiry or something else, you can find a list of contact details on the contact us page.
Customer satisfaction survey - treat official correspondence
Our customer satisfaction survey found 30 per cent of customers were satisfied with the overall service provided by the 'treat official' team. We are of course concerned that a substantial number of customers were not satisfied and we are continuously looking at ways to improve services.
Result of feedback
As a result of your feedback we have started to make changes to the way we respond to correspondence. For example, you have told us that when you wrote to the Home Secretary you expected a response from her, and that you did not receive one, or an explanation about why you did not receive one. As a result of this feedback, in future if you write to the Home Secretary you will receive a letter from us explaining why your correspondence has been forwarded to us to respond.
Other service improvements
We plan to incorporate a more effective IT system to improve the way we monitor 'treat official' correspondence and ensure all departments are meeting the service level agreement and responding to your enquiries within 20 working days.
We are reviewing our responses to ensure, where possible, your queries are answered in a plain, concise and easy to understand manner.
We are sharing your feedback with departments across the agency to ensure all departments work together to provide a quick and efficient service.