Ministerial correspondence: registering, drafting and due dates

Registering and assigning

Correspondence reaches a minister's office or department by email, post and online forms. An AI worker reading the intake mailbox can:

• register each item with the sender, date, subject, and whether it is from a constituent, stakeholder, member of parliament or another minister;
• suggest the responsible area, based on your own allocation rules, for a coordinator to confirm;
• set a due date from your office's rules for that type of correspondence;
• link the item to earlier correspondence from the same sender or on the same issue;
• flag items that look urgent or sensitive for the coordinator to look at first.

Drafting replies for approval

Many letters on the same issue need the same core reply. Once a line on an issue has been approved, the AI can draft a reply for a new letter from that approved text and the briefing material you give it. It adjusts the salutation and the parts that respond to this writer's particular points. It notes where the incoming letter raises something the approved text doesn't cover. The draft goes to the action officer in Word, where The Everything "drafts and edits in your document, with each change approved".

The AI should draft only from material your agency has approved. It should not invent policy positions, figures or commitments. Where approved material doesn't cover a point, the draft should say so plainly, so the officer writes that part.

Due dates and sign-off

Ministerial correspondence has no single statutory deadline. Due dates are set by each minister's office and department. The AI can keep a register of every item's stage (drafting, with the line area, in clearance, with the office, signed, sent). It can post a daily list in Teams of items due this week and items overdue at each stage, and remind whoever holds an item when it has been sitting too long.

When a reply is signed, the AI can file the final version and the incoming letter together and close the item in the register.

What stays with a person

• The policy position and any new commitment.
• Every clearance step, and the decision on who signs.
• The signature and the decision to send.
• Handling of anything politically sensitive, legally sensitive or involving personal hardship.

Sensitivity and where data goes

Ministerial correspondence often contains personal information and material that is politically sensitive. Check your agency's information classification and privacy rules before any AI tool processes it. The Everything's privacy policy says AI processing uses Azure OpenAI and OpenAI, and that providers may process information outside your country. It states no government security certification. For many agencies that will rule out some or all of this correspondence. Read what to check before you start. Requests for documents rather than replies follow a different, statutory process covered on the FOI requests page.

Questions people ask