Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the performance of the Probate Service in processing applications for probate in 2019; how he measures that performance; and how long it took on average to process a probate application in each of the last 24 months.

Official statistics are not published on the average length of time from receipt of the application to the issue of a grant of probate. Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) internal management information, which is not subject to the rigorous quality assurance processes of official statistics, has been used to show the following average times from receipt of an application to a grant being issued:

These figures do not include cases which are waiting for a grant to be issued. The data from April 2019 to June 2019 have been extracted from the HMCTS Reform Core Case Data system, which is a new system in active development, and may not be directly comparable with figures for earlier periods. All figures, especially those for April 2019 to June 2019, are provisional and subject to revision.

Some grants are experiencing delays of between four and six weeks outside of our targets as a result of significant increases in work during March and April and some technology issues which have now been resolved. We have recruited more staff and are now issuing in excess of 1,000 grants a day, which is bringing waiting times down further.

Urgent action has been taken to address the delays which have been experienced in the probate service. Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service is increasing staffing levels and further improving the digital service to help reduce waiting times.