The Home Office has been singled out as the worst performing government department for answering MPs' questions.

A new report from the Commons public administration committee found that Charles Clarke's department was the worst in Whitehall for offering an explanation as to why an answer could not be provided and for meeting deadlines for responses.

The ministry is also among the worst for meeting the 15 working day target for replying to letters from MPs and peers.

Other offenders included the Department of Health (DoH) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), while the Ministry of Defence (MoD) won rare praise from MPs over its accountability.

However, the discrepancy between departments' performances prompted the committee to call for an annual audit of government accountability to parliament.

The report also asked whether there are "systemic difficulties in certain departments over the handling of information".

League tables

But it was the Home Office that came in for the most severe criticism, finishing near the bottom of Whitehall league tables in three areas.

On only 13 per cent of occasions does the ministry offer an explanation for why it is unable to answer a question. Under a government code of practice, it is obliged to provide explanations on all occasions.

The MoD meets this obligation on 86 per cent of occasions, while the Whitehall average stands at 52 per cent.

This was still too low for the MPs who expressed "concern that departments have failed to honour fully their undertaking".

Clarke's team also attracted criticism for its inability to meet deadlines.

In only 41 per cent of cases does the Home Office meet the deadline for replying to MPs' "named-day questions". The DoH and Defra were even worse at 39 per cent and 21 per cent respectively, whereas the MoD did so 65 per cent of the time.

In handling correspondence, the Home Office was again among the worst performers, but the report did acknowledge this could be a result of the volume and nature of their caseload.