The House Article | Casework Crisis: Increase In Constituency Caseload Takes Its Toll
Illustration by: Tracy Worrall 12 min read3 hr The inexorable growth in casework is stopping MPs from fulfilling their other roles. Alice Lilly sifts through the inbox looking for what might be done to relieve the pressure None of this is new. Nearly two decades ago the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) expressed concern that MPs’ “casework appears to be growing inexorably”. At the time MPs’ offices were complaining that they were dealing with a few hundred letters a week, as well as phone calls and the occasional, still relatively novel, email. Today MPs routinely post casework figures on their social media that imply they are dealing with tens of thousands of cases a year. Some of the drivers are well understood: public services in decline, the pandemic, and technology that eases communication. But also at the heart of the ever-expanding workload is a deep confusion over what MPs, shared in no little measure by the members themselves, are actually for. The absence of reliable data on casework illustrates the point. …
