Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the time the Office of Public Guardian takes to process applications for Lasting Power of Attorney.

OPG have had staff in the office throughout the COVID pandemic but the registration of Powers of Attorney is a paper-based process and, as a consequence of the pandemic impacting on the number of staff who could be present in the office, it has taken longer than usual for an LPA to be registered.

Now that COVID restrictions have ended, more staff have been able to return to the office and are working hard to reduce the backlog. OPG have also allocated extra staff to process Powers of Attorney and have used overtime and an additional night shift in order to process LPAs as quickly as possible.

OPG hope to see a reduction in processing times over the coming months.