Cheryl Gillan: MoJ: Written Answers (4)

Written Question

Probate

Monday 18th January 2021

Asked by: Cheryl Gillan (Conservative - Chesham and Amersham)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many applications for grant of probate his Department has outstanding at the most recent date for which that information is available.

Answered by Alex Chalk

Data showing the volume of applications for Grant of Probate that are outstanding includes both cases that have not yet been issued and also all cases which could not be processed by HMCTS, on initial receipt, due to missing or inaccurate information (cases which are ‘stopped’):

Outstanding¹ Grant of Probate Application at 27 December 2020, England and Wales ^{1,2, 3, 4}
Probate
	Volume of outstanding applications	Volume of stopped applications
27-Dec-20	20,759	18,824

The number of grant applications submitted but not yet withdrawn or issued. Dormant Applications have been excluded.
Stopped cases are a subset of the volumes of cases and include cases with a status of 'Case stopped re-issue', 'Case Stopped', 'Stopped'.
Data and management information and may differ from previously published data. are not subject to the same level of checks as official statistics. Data in line with published MI (14/1/2021).
Data has not been cross referenced with case files and are not subject to the same level of checks as official statistics.

The overall volume of outstanding cases has been steadily reducing in recent months.

The most recently published information regarding waiting times for a grant of probate covers July 2020 to September 2020 and is published on gov.uk via Family Court Statistics Quarterly (Table 26):

Average time to grant issue for probate grants, England and Wales ^{1,2, 3}
	Application submission to grant issue		Document receipt to grant issue³
	Mean weeks	Median weeks	Mean weeks	Median weeks
July 2020 to September 2020	6.7	4.9	6	4.4
Source HMCTS Core Case Data

HMCTS Core Case Data (CCD) came into effect at the end of March 2019, following a transition between data systems recording information regarding The Probate Service.
The average timeliness figures are produced by calculating the time from application/document receipt (which may be from an earlier period) to the grant issued made in that period.
Document receipt occurs after payment has been made and all accompanying paperwork has been received by HMCTS.

In 2020 the level of applications being made increased and the service faced unprecedented challenges due to the impact of Covid 19.

Despite this, and as a result of HMCTS increasing resources to meet demand, the average length of time taken for a Grant of Probate to be issued improved quarter on quarter throughout the year.

Written Question

Probate

Monday 18th January 2021

Asked by: Cheryl Gillan (Conservative - Chesham and Amersham)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what average time has been taken by his Department to issue a grant of probate after receipt of an application in the most recent period for which that information is available.

Answered by Alex Chalk

Outstanding¹ Grant of Probate Application at 27 December 2020, England and Wales ^{1,2, 3, 4}
Probate
	Volume of outstanding applications	Volume of stopped applications
27-Dec-20	20,759	18,824

The number of grant applications submitted but not yet withdrawn or issued. Dormant Applications have been excluded.
Stopped cases are a subset of the volumes of cases and include cases with a status of 'Case stopped re-issue', 'Case Stopped', 'Stopped'.
Data and management information and may differ from previously published data. are not subject to the same level of checks as official statistics. Data in line with published MI (14/1/2021).
Data has not been cross referenced with case files and are not subject to the same level of checks as official statistics.

The overall volume of outstanding cases has been steadily reducing in recent months.

The most recently published information regarding waiting times for a grant of probate covers July 2020 to September 2020 and is published on gov.uk via Family Court Statistics Quarterly (Table 26):

Average time to grant issue for probate grants, England and Wales ^{1,2, 3}
	Application submission to grant issue		Document receipt to grant issue³
	Mean weeks	Median weeks	Mean weeks	Median weeks
July 2020 to September 2020	6.7	4.9	6	4.4
Source HMCTS Core Case Data

HMCTS Core Case Data (CCD) came into effect at the end of March 2019, following a transition between data systems recording information regarding The Probate Service.
The average timeliness figures are produced by calculating the time from application/document receipt (which may be from an earlier period) to the grant issued made in that period.
Document receipt occurs after payment has been made and all accompanying paperwork has been received by HMCTS.

In 2020 the level of applications being made increased and the service faced unprecedented challenges due to the impact of Covid 19.

Despite this, and as a result of HMCTS increasing resources to meet demand, the average length of time taken for a Grant of Probate to be issued improved quarter on quarter throughout the year.

Written Question

Prisons: Autism

Tuesday 1st September 2020

Asked by: Cheryl Gillan (Conservative - Chesham and Amersham)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make it his policy to include the recording of autism in the Prison Population Statistics.

Answered by Lucy Frazer

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is committed to supporting all vulnerable people who come into contact with the criminal justice system, including individuals with autism. We recognise the importance of meeting the needs of this cohort, are therefore taking steps to improve the collection and recording of data on disability.

This includes ongoing work by HM Prisons and Probation Service (HMPPS) to implement a new data categorisation list which aligns with that used by the World Health Organisation and the Government Statistical Service on the new Prison National Offender Management Information System (new-NOMIS). This will provide a better structured and more intuitively organised list of conditions, allowing more accurate recording of disabilities and health conditions, including Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome. Improving this data will allow us to better understand and support the prison population and its individual needs, as well as enabling the identification of any disparity in outcomes. Once the categorisation has fully bedded into our systems and we have sufficient completion rates and data quality, we will aim to publish this within our annual Official Statistics report ‘Offender Equalities’.

Written Question

High Speed 2 Railway Line

Monday 16th March 2015

Asked by: Cheryl Gillan (Conservative - Chesham and Amersham)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will review his Department's decision not to provide legal aid to petitioners appearing before the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill Select Committee.

Answered by Shailesh Vara

Decisions about legal aid funding in civil cases are a matter for the Director of Legal Aid Casework and his staff at the Legal Aid Agency (LAA), which is responsible for administering the legal aid scheme. Ministers cannot intervene in decisions made about the grant of funding in individual cases.

The LAA refused an application for funding from the High Speed 2 Action Alliance (“HS2AA”) in relation to the Bill procedure, as it did not meet the statutory criteria to receive public funding in respect of either means or exceptional funding. A review of the refusal of the application was sought and the LAA has upheld its decision.