Holmes: We want LPAs to be a greater part of everyday life
There was a 28% surge in the number of applications for lasting powers of attorney (LPAs) last year, but the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) still managed to reduce its backlog.
However, although the time taken to process them fell, the average was still nearly twice the OPG’s target.
The OPG’s newly published annual report, for the year to 31 March 2024, painted a picture of improving performance against the backdrop of a larger workload.
It received 1.37m applications to register powers of attorney over the 12 months, compared to 1.07m the previous year.
“This higher demand for LPAs is welcome but placed additional pressure on our backlog recovery.” It said.
The backlog stood at 223,200 LPAs in March 2023 and increased to 288,100 by August. The OPG responded by recruiting more staff and leasing additional office space, and by March 2024 had cut the backlog to 149,400.
As a result, the average time to register and dispatch LPAs and enduring powers of attorney (EPAs) fell from 91 to 76 working days, against a pre-pandemic target of 40 days. However, the figure disguises the progress made in the way, from an average of 80 days in April 2023 to 62 in March 2024.
“Achieving this has required additional resourcing, shift working patterns, overtime working, staff training across multiple work areas, and continued focus on productivity and process efficiencies,” the report said.
“We remain determined to make further progress in clearing the backlog fully and are aiming to achieve this during the next financial year.”
There are now a little over eight million LPAs and EPAs on the register.
The rising number of LPAs and growth in the OPG’s caseload supervising deputies – it now has 60,516 clients, a 4% increase – created a higher demand for investigations of abuse by attorneys or court-appointed deputies.
The 28% increase in the number of investigations, to 3,647, in turn meant the OPG failed to meet the target to complete investigations within 70 working days, with the average being 93 days. “We have put recovery plans in place to improve our performance,” it said.
At the same time, the Government Internal Audit Agency audited the supervision work and awarded its strongest rating of ‘Substantial’ assurance in terms of the governance, risk management and controls in place.
The year also saw the OPG open a new contact centre, extend its phone line operating hours, and create a new phone line for customers to make card payments, as well as clear its customer complaints backlog.
This all contributed to an increase in customer satisfaction from an average of 60% to 76%, with March 2024 hitting the target of 80%.
The OPG said it would be introducing a new digital channel for applying to register LPAs, alongside an improved paper-based process, while last September saw the Powers of Attorney Act 2023 receive royal assent.
“This Act, alongside secondary legislation needed to make the modernised service operational, will make the service safer, easier and quicker, as well as improve protections against fraud.
“We have been designing and developing our modernised service. We look forward to starting customer testing once we have worked through the detailed design and have the necessary secondary legislation in place.”
The OPG’s legal team made 577 supervision and investigation applications to the Court of Protection (CoP), compared to 704 applications the previous year, as well as 1,387 applications to resolve uncertainties in the legal effectiveness of provisions in LPAs, up from 875.
But “our expectations for the time taken to submit cases to court were not met this year” – it took 44 working days from the date of accepting a recommendation that court action be taken to then issuing proceedings, compared to 32 last year and a target of 35.
“We were out of target this year due to a significant increase in hearings combined with higher staff turnover. We have taken steps to improve retention of lawyers and the benefits of the new legal case management system, once embedded, will contribute towards improved performance in this area.”
Amy Holmes, the Public Guardian and OPG chief executive, welcomed the rising number of LPAs: “As an organisation, we want LPAs to be a greater part of everyday life, to make sure more people are empowered and protected.”
She added that, “while it is right to recognise the progress made in improving the customer experience, there are areas of concern and challenges we still need to overcome.
“We need to continue to reduce wait times for LPA applications and get back within target… We have a recovery plan in place to bring investigations back within target.
“We have also worked to ensure all cases were triaged quickly for safeguarding needs and we prioritised urgent cases to minimise risk for our most vulnerable customers.”
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