Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce the time taken to register a power of attorney.

The Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) aims to register lasting powers of attorney (LPA) within eight weeks, including a legally required four-week notice period for objections.

A backlog that built up during the COVID-19 pandemic was successfully cleared by November 2024. From then until March 2025, OPG consistently met the 40-day registration target.

Due to sustained increases in demand and an isolated and local power outage in March 2025, registration is currently taking slightly longer than the OPG target. OPG is addressing this through recruitment efforts, overtime, and new scanning systems to improve efficiency.

Plans to modernise LPAs will allow LPAs to be fully made and registered online for the first time, with paper option retained. Digitisation will improve accessibility, reduce errors, and shorten processing times.