Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 11 September 2023 to Question 197320 on Probate: Applications, how many and what proportion of probate applications took longer than 16 weeks to be processed in the latest period for which data is available.
The proportion of cases taking longer than 16 weeks to be processed is 33% for the period of April to June 2023, which has reduced from 37% for the period from January to March 2023.
The probate service received record levels of applications during 2022 and this has continued to grow with higher levels of receipts during January to June 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. Whilst HMCTS has increased resources to meet the higher demand the training and upskilling of those new and existing staff has led to applications taking longer in the short term.
Average waiting times for probate grants are routinely published on gov.uk via Family Court Statistics Quarterly and currently cover the period up to June 2023.