Powers of Attorney
(asked on 27th March 2023) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many applications for Lasting Power of Attorney were registered in (a) less than 10 weeks, (b) 10 to 20 weeks, (c) more than 20 weeks in the last 12 months.
Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA) applications are registered by the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG). After LPAs are registered, they then need to be dispatched to applicants. The full application process therefore starts from the date an application is received by OPG (this is the date that OPG receives payment for the LPA application), and the application process ends on the dispatch date. Monthly data for 2022 shows that the average time to register and dispatch an LPA application was at its highest in October, at just over 20 weeks (102.22 working days), and this has since trended downwards to just under 18 weeks (89 working days) in February 2023. OPG remains focussed on making further progress.
The below data excludes Enduring Powers of Attorney (EPA) applications which, while valid, were replaced by LPAs after the Mental Capacity Act 2005 came into effect from 1 October 2007. A week is defined as ‘working days’, i.e. excluding weekends and bank holidays. Applications may take longer to be registered if they contain errors that need to be rectified by the customer.
Within the last 12 months, OPG has registered and then dispatched LPAs as follows:
| Number of LPA applications dispatched in: | ||
Month | Less than 10 Weeks | 10 to 20 Weeks | More than 20 Weeks |
Mar-22 | 87 | 68,555 | 8,173 |
Apr-22 | 185 | 54,604 | 5,115 |
May-22 | 110 | 63,895 | 4,259 |
Jun-22 | 384 | 60,556 | 4,398 |
Jul-22 | 147 | 55,625 | 5,573 |
Aug-22 | 377 | 52,433 | 8,434 |
Sep-22 | 159 | 72,893 | 7,810 |
Oct-22 | 169 | 69,247 | 11,221 |
Nov-22 | 230 | 81,802 | 9,246 |
Dec-22 | 317 | 72,741 | 5,439 |
Jan-23 | 333 | 90,209 | 5,453 |
Feb-23 | 199 | 62,500 | 4,942 |
The OPG is recovering from a backlog which was created during the pandemic and is facing high demand to process LPA applications. Customers are currently advised to allow up to 20 weeks for LPA applications to be processed. This includes the statutory four-week waiting period and any queries that may need to be resolved. OPG’s target to register LPAs is within an average of eight weeks. To work towards that target, OPG staff are working shift patterns to register LPAs, extra staff have been hired, and process efficiencies have been implemented.