Allan Dorans: MPs and staff do so much work for constituents

We helped constituents in real difficulty, struggling to survive, many times by making sure they got the benefits they are entitled to, better housing or disability support. Many write to demand fairer treatment for animals, an end to the abuse of human rights in numerous countries where the UK has influence, or improvements in the environment.

The range of topics is enormous, putting great pressure on my team but also offering them stimulating work – they are never bored.

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During nearly four-and-a-half years in office, we responded to more than 9800 cases, with my small team of three full-timers and one or two part-timers at different times.

Around half of those cases required background research, a response to the constituent and, in many cases, a letter to a minister of the UK Government. Cases such as these take typically only a few hours to complete but the others, termed “case work”, can take many days of effort spread over months, perhaps years.

They require emails and long telephone calls to the often distressed, sometimes angry, constituent and to government agencies such as the DWP (pensions and benefits), the DVLA (driving licences), the Home Office (visas and passports), local councils and health boards.

The team of caseworkers have become experts in dealing with, for example, government agencies to help local people get the benefits they are entitled to, to improve their communication with various authorities and to accelerate the issue of passports and visas.

Increasingly, we receive very warm and grateful emails when we get results and even when we only empathise and write to ministers on their behalf. Sometimes we get flowers and chocolates. The chocolates are scoffed long before I can declare them in donations.

I have been able to put together a very effective team and its efforts are much appreciated by me. Research by University College London in 2023 suggests that, across the country, MPs’ staff are often unsung heroes. I fully agree with that view.

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Why do some come to their MP with these problems rather than just dealing directly with the professionals who work for the authorities? In most cases, they come to us as a last resort, feeling they are getting nowhere and having become anxious.

While the professionals working for the authorities are often under great pressure, must always defend their employers, are underfunded and sometimes undertrained, they are doing their very best in difficult times, after now 12 years of neglect and cuts by Conservative governments.

An MP’s team is, by contrast, impartial and has “hotlines” to staff who can use the discretion they have to accelerate the cases we bring to them. Also, MPs have “hotlines” to the media and heads of government authorities know this. Is mine a particularly busy office, with around 2000 cases per year to deal with? MPs do not, of course, publish these figures and different populations, cultures and economies in each constituency make comparison difficult.

In 2021, there was an attempt by researchers to measure MPs’ responsiveness to emails from their constituents, by King’s College London, but the research ran into such controversy that they could only report on how they might do better next time.

All I have is the Guardian report from September 2021 of a Labour MP in the north of England saying they had typically just over 700 cases in a year and an anecdotal report of a Scottish Conservative MP dealing with around the same number.

The expectations placed on an MP in the 21st century are increasingly complex and demanding but the interests of our constituents – not just those who voted for us but all of them – come first.

Allan Dorans is the SNP candidate for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock