A fifth of applications to register a lasting power of attorney (LPA) contain mistakes that render them invalid or prevent registration, the new public guardian has told the Gazette.

Martin John, who was appointed in June, said ‘about 20% of applications have real issues’ and announced his office will launch a wide-ranging review of the new LPA application process this autumn ‘to make sure solicitors and users can fill the forms out’.

While noting this was an improvement, given 30% of forms contained invalidating errors immediately after LPAs were introduced, he said 6,800 applications were made in June alone – a three-fold increase compared to the same period last year – and that forms must be ‘as user-friendly as possible’.

LPAs, which allow a person to delegate decision-making should they lose mental capacity, replaced the enduring power of attorney system last October when the Mental Capacity Act 2006 came into force. The new system was introduced to increase safeguards protecting vulnerable adults from fraud.

However, the new system has come under fire from solicitors and campaign groups because of the length of forms, and the time taken – sometimes more than three months – by the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) to process them. Practitioners have also complained fees must be paid twice if a form has to be resubmitted.

John said that applications received after mid-June were now processed within the nine-week target time and the backlog of forms would be completed by the end of August.

He added the OPG intended to further reduce turnaround to eight weeks – possibly by allowing applicants to amend minor mistakes during the statutory six-week holding period in which named individuals can raise objections.

The scope of the review is yet to be confirmed, but John expects it will be ‘a series of consultations about particular themes’ including the fee policy, the design of the forms and the implementation of the rules.

The public guardian also rejected claims that moving more Court of Protection visitors supervising vulnerable adults on to an employed, rather than self-employed, basis was a cost-cutting exercise that would lead to a decline in expertise (See [2008] Gazette, 31 July, 6).

He said the changes would reduce waiting times for visits from six months to eight weeks, adding there were increased rates for complex cases.See Opinion