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<p>The probate service received record levels of applications during 2022 and this
has continued to grow with higher levels of receipts during January to June 2023 compared
to the same period in 2022. Whilst HMCTS has increased resources to meet the higher
demand the training and upskilling of those new and existing staff has led to applications
taking longer in the short term.</p><p>HMCTS are focused on increasing outputs to
reduce overall timeliness on all types of applications and the average mean length
of time taken for a grant of probate, following receipt of the documents required,
is 13 weeks during April to June 2023.</p><p>Average waiting times for probate grants
are routinely published on gov.uk via Family Court Statistics Quarterly and currently
cover the period up to June 2023.</p><p>The number of FTEs working in the probate
service in each of the last five years is as follows:</p><p>March 2019 = 152</p><p>March
2020 = 153</p><p>March 2021 = 250</p><p>March 2022 = 246</p><p>March 2023 = 296</p><p>We
aim to answer telephone enquiries to the probate service within an average of 12 minutes.
However, 2022 performance had fallen short of this goal but has since improved in
2023 by 60% to 12 minutes 15 seconds.</p><p>To improve telephone response times and
the overall experience for applicants, HMCTS have undertaken additional staff training
to ensure probate call agents can provide more accurate and helpful information.</p><p>To
further enhance the information provided during calls, we are expanding our probate
contact centre scripts and FAQs to address common queries in a clear and compassionate
way.</p>
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