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.

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.