The PDF fully understands the struggles faced by law firms offering professional deputyship services, whether that be the practical issues such as opening a bank account or dealing with a utility provider to getting paid correctly for work legitimately done and balancing the books every year. Whatever the problem, it is important to remember that the person that these problems impact most is P! This is the person whom we are all (and many statutory organisations) are charged with protecting.

The PDF take the view that we are at a precipice in the sustainability of the profession and therefore commissioned a report from Caroline Bielanka, Solicitor TEP, seeking her professional opinion as to the challenges faced by Deputies and the impact on P if matters do not change.

A link to the report is detailed below.

Caroline’s report details the key concerns facing the profession as follows:

• The drive to ensure that the professional deputy’s role is sustainable to the person for whom the deputy is appointed to act (P) is imbalanced to the point that there is a real and present risk that the work is financially unsustainable and significant numbers will not seek appointment or wish to retire.
• The judgment of Re ACC [2020] EWCOP 9 (Re ACC) has increased the work of the deputy, resulting in additional costs; has created difficulties in implementation; and with the risk that the professional deputy may not recover costs for necessary work.
• Human resource shortages across multiple organisations is resulting in delays and additional costs, which have a detrimental impact on P and the ability to act in an efficient and cost-effective way.
• Lack of investment in the Court of Protection’s information technology is hampering its ability to deliver an efficient and effective service to the detriment of users.
• Lack of understanding of financial organisations about the role of a deputy and the Mental Capacity Act (MCA 2005) is such that it can take a long time to open an account, and can restrict how the account is managed and can increase the risk of misuse due to organisations technology.

Caroline goes on in her report to make the following recommendations:

1. The OPG and SCCO update their guidance on costs with input from the PDF and the Court of Protection to reflect practice and Court undertakings.
2. PD19 rates should be uplifted annually by inflation.
3. Investment in The Court of Protection is needed to increase staffing and IT, building on the on-line process for financial deputyship.
4. The Court’s internal processes should be changed to ensure orders can be dispatched within days of the order being made.
5. The template deputyship order should be altered to automatically permit the deputy to obtain a deferred payment agreement where it is in P’s best interests and the Court should engage with the PDF as to what other authority could be included as standard to reduce the need to make subsequent applications.
6. Investment should be made in the SCCO so there are adequate costs officers to bring down the time frame to have a bill assessed.
7. The SCCO should address inconsistencies in which grade of fee earner is expected to carry out the activity and the expected time frame to undertake the activity should be based on real world understanding.
8. Professional deputies outside of public authorities should be limited to those who hold a relevant legal qualification and are regulated by a professional body to safeguard Ps.

Averting a crisis is going to require all of the relevant stakeholders (including, OPG, SCCO, Court of Protection and the Ministry of Justice) to both engage and listen to these concerns.

The PDF will be sharing Caroline’s report with these stakeholders with a view to engaging with them to consider all the necessary steps to best ensure that this profession is both sustainable and effective to P. They all have a part to play in this and the aim of the PDF is to ‘get them to the table’ to make real and meaningful change for the benefit of P. The PDF thanks you for your continued support in this endeavour and we shall seek to regularly update our members with the progress made.