Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he plans to respond to the correspondence of August 2023 from the constituent of the hon. Member for Cynon Valley, Michael O’Brien, sent via his solicitor.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice takes the handling of correspondence seriously and apologises for the delay in replying to the hon. Member for Cynon Valley, Beth Winter, and their constituent Michael O’Brien. We can confirm that the Secretary of State for Justice is still considering the position on retrospective saved living expenses, and a response will be sent out as soon as possible.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he plans to respond to the correspondence of August 2023 from the hon. Member for Cynon Valley relating to a constituent, Michael O’Brien.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice takes the handling of correspondence seriously and apologises for the delay in replying to the hon. Member for Cynon Valley, Beth Winter, and their constituent Michael O’Brien. We can confirm that the Secretary of State for Justice is still considering the position on retrospective saved living expenses, and a response will be sent out as soon as possible.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when the Office of the Public Guardian will return to an average of eight weeks to register a Lasting Power of Attorney.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) is facing high demand to register Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA) applications, and overcoming a backlog created by the Covid-19 pandemic. To respond to this high demand and return to the average of eight weeks to register and dispatch LPAs to customers, OPG staff are working overtime and across multiple shift patterns, additional staff have been hired, and process efficiencies have been implemented. OPG aims to return to the average eight-week target before the end of the 2023-24 financial year.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what his Department's current average call wait times are for individual members of the public contacting the Office of the Public Guardian.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The current average call wait time is 22 minutes and 18 seconds. This figure is for calls received during the week of 20th to 24th March 2023. The Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) has taken a number of steps to improve call wait times. Additional staff have recently been recruited, are being trained and are expected to start taking calls in April 2023. When customers send in Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA) applications, they now receive acknowledgment letters, which has reduced the number of calls to check on application progress. OPG also identified the most common queries customers were calling about, and introduced a FAQs section on its phone lines. These steps have enabled other calls to be answered more quickly, and OPG remains committed to reducing call waiting times further.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to reduce average call wait times for people contacting the Office of the Public Guardian.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) is currently receiving a high volume of calls and is committed to reducing the average call waiting times that customers experience. To improve call waiting times, OPG is recruiting additional staff and has improved information that is available to customers to reduce the number of calls that customers need to make.
The number of staff working in the call centre is increasing OPG has been recruiting additional staff, who will be trained and are expected to start taking calls in April 2023.
OPG has been working to improve its customer service including providing updates on the progress of applications. In September 2022, OPG introduced an acknowledgment letter to send to customers to reassure them about the progress of their applications and to reduce the number of calls OPG receive, leading to other calls being answered more quickly.
OPG also identified the top 10-15 questions that customers most commonly call about, and in June 2022, introduced FAQs which are played on its call lines while customers wait for their calls to be answered, helping to further reduce the number of calls requiring assistance from a contact centre advisor.
The government is also supporting the Powers of Attorney Bill sponsored by Stephen Metcalfe MP. In addition to improving the current paper-based service, the Bill will also enable a new digital service, thereby helping to further reduce call volumes and call wait times for customers.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
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.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
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.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 11 January 2023 to Question 114828 on Energy: Meters and to the Answer of 31 January 2023 to Question 130110 on Energy: Meters, whether his Department has issued guidance to magistrates on energy companies seeking a warrant to install a prepayment meter in the period since the announcement by Ofgem of a market-wide review into prepayment meter installations.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The statutory responsibility for issuing guidance to the judiciary is held by the Lord Chief Justice, the Senior President of Tribunals, and the Chief Coroner. They do not consult the government on the guidance they issue to the judiciary as they are independent of government.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of trends in the (a) leaving rate and (b) resignation rate of probation officers in the year ending September 2022.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The HM Prison & Probation workforce quarterly publication covers staffing information, including the leaving and resignation rate for Probation Officers, and can be found via the following link: HM Prison and Probation Service workforce quarterly: September 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The latest publication captures data up to the period of 30th September 2022.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of trends in the average working days lost to sickness absence of probation officers in the year ending September 2022.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The data is published in the HMPPS Workforce Quarterly publication.
The most recent publication with data to September 2022 is here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hm-prison-and-probation-service-workforce-quarterly-september-2022.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of when the Probation Service will meet its required staffing level.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
This is an ever-evolving picture and is based on a variety of factors, including forecast caseload, case mix, recruitment plans, attrition and the Target Staffing level. Staffing level data is regularly monitored, ensuring plans, such as recruitment, are in place where appropriate, as well providing an assessment of affordability against the latest and forecast financial position.
In addition, we have unified the Probation Service and injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year to deliver more robust supervision, reduce caseloads and recruit thousands more staff to keep the public safer. We have recruited a record-breaking 2,500 trainee probation officers over the last two years, and we plan to recruit a further 1,500 by March 2023.