Disenfranchised constituent, of Newton Abbot, writes:

Regretfully I have to agree with the letter writer (MDA April 13) that our MP does seem to have problems answering correspondence, whether the fault lies with her personally or her back office only they know.  

I decided to write to her in October complaining about the ineptness of the police, Crown prosecutor and the council in dealing with a straightforward case of attempted robbery with menaces in the belief that she had more authority than us lesser mortals. I wanted her to call these institutions to account for their failings. I ignored a neighbour's comment, based on his experience,  that I wouldn't  get  an acknowledgement.

As my neighbour predicted my letter went unacknowledged. I eventually phoned her office and was told that it had been probably lost in the post.  My explanation that I had hand delivered it to their local office in Salisbury Road was then met with  the excuse it may have been misappropriated by people using other parts of their building.

There was then a burst of activity with her staff sending letters to the three institutions with a promise they would get back to me as and when they got replies. That was mid November. Within a couple of weeks the local council had replied with a fatuous letter that did not address the issue, a copy of which was forwarded to me by the MP's office saying they would  be in contact  as and when the other two institutions replied. I heard nothing more until I enquired in early March as to what was happening. To my disappointment I discovered they had been sitting on the other two replies for over three months. Both letters sought further information to identify the incident.

By this time, not surprisingly, I had lost all confidence in their ability to deal with the matter and I told them that I  saw little sense in pursuing the matter any further as the momentum had been lost.

It's a shame as in my working life I was often on the receiving end of letters from  Patrick Nicholls, Rupert Allason and other MPs and I learnt many a salutory lesson as the process adopted by them was far more robust and it did much to improve my effectiveness and efficiency in serving the public.MORE LETTERS IN OUR DIGITAL EDITION