The Ministry of Justice has admitted that the decision to move probate services to a primarily digital service, the first in the justice system, did not go smoothly, and as a result ‘numerous mistakes were made in the way it was done’.

This has led to a backlog of probate applications and excessive delays since the 2020 decision to move online.  

Courts and legal services minister Sarah Sackman KC has explained the reasons for the probate failures, in a letter to the Justice Select Committee following a long-running inquiry by MPs into unacceptable delays.