(2) what assessment he has made of the effect of the time taken to process lasting powers of attorney on the wellbeing of elderly people in England.
Lasting powers of attorney (LPAs) were introduced by the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and came into force in October 2007. As of 11 June 2008 the average time taken from receipt of an application to registration by the Office of the Public Guardian was 12 weeks. This time is currently three weeks longer than the OPG's targets in this area. The overall time includes a statutory six-week waiting period during which objections to registration can be made to the Public Guardian and which represents a valuable safeguard against the potential abuse of vulnerable people.
No immediate assessment has been made concerning the effects of the time taken to process and register an LPA. LPAs are not designed for immediate use but as a method for people to plan ahead for a time when they may lack capacity. The OPG will be making an assessment of how the new legislation is operating from October 2008 once the Act has been in operation for a full year. A key element of this review will be an evaluation of how well lasting powers of attorney are meeting people's needs and the impact of the new forms, practices and procedures on the people they are intended to support.
(2) what the target time is for processing applications for powers of attorney by the Office of the Public Guardian;
(3) how many applications for powers of attorney were not replied to in the target time by the Office of the Public Guardian in each of the last five years.
The current fee regulations for both Lasting Powers of Attorney and Enduring Powers of Attorney require a fee to be paid upon an application to register the power with the Office of the Public Guardian. No refund is automatically payable either if the target for registering the power is missed, or if the target is missed and the person who lacks capacity, or the applicant, dies before it is registered.
If an applicant, or the person who lacks capacity, feels that they have suffered significant worry, distress or financial loss as a result of an unreasonable delay then they may be entitled to financial redress.
The Office of the Public Guardian's business plan outlines the targets that have been agreed with the Ministry of Justice. For Lasting Powers of Attorney, these targets, together with the statutory waiting period, give a maximum expected end-to-end processing time of nine weeks. This includes two weeks to process and check the application, a six-week statutory waiting period during which objections to registration can be made, and a further week to notify parties of registration. For Enduring Powers of Attorney the maximum expected end-to-end processing time is six weeks, which includes a five-week statutory waiting period followed by a week to notify parties of registration.
Since 2003 the Public Guardianship Office, and from October the Office of the Public Guardian would have met this timescale for Enduring Powers of Attorney in virtually all cases (between 99-100 per cent.) except in 1996 when 96.3 per cent. of cases met those timescales.
Since October 2007 the OPG has seen increasingly large numbers of applications to register powers of attorney, which has led to delays in the process for Lasting Powers of Attorney. For example, in both April and May this year total applications to register both types of powers of attorney were approximately three times as many as for the same period last year.
This has meant that Lasting Power of Attorney applications are currently taking an average of 12 weeks to process—three weeks longer than we would expect. I regret the delays which are due to the increased volumes of business. Additional resources have already been put into place to address this. The Office of the Public Guardian expects to see delays reduced over the coming weeks so that service standards can begin to be brought back within targets.