Charities need “more insight” from the probate service so they can plan better, MPs have heard.
Charity representatives have been giving evidence to members of the House of Commons Justice Committee as part of its inquiry into the probate service.
Angela Morrison, chief operating officer at Cancer Research UK, said the charity was waiting for about £30m of donations that had been caught up in a probate backlog.
Morrison told MPs that charities needed more “insight” from the probate service on delays so they could “plan accordingly”.
She said the delay in funding has prevented the charity from investing in “key capital projects”.
CRUK had gone through budgeting rounds where it had taken money out of capital investment because of the delays, she said.
“We’ve had research this year that we’ve not invested in, we’ve had 44 projects we could have invested in that we’ve not invested in,” said Morrison.
An estimated £900m in legacy fundraising is “caught up in the backlog” according to Legacy Foresight.
Alex McDowell, vice-chair of Remember a Charity, said news of the probate backlog starting to decrease since last September was a “short-term fix” and warned the delays could grow again.
He said: “The good news for us in society and all of our charities is more of the public are choosing to include a gift in their will.
“But if you look at their demographic projections that also means there’ll be more demands on this service because there will also be higher mortality in the near future.
“What we can’t have is a short-term fix to the service but then we find that in six months, a year and two years time it dipped back down to deal with rising demand.”
McDowell called for greater transparency from His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service on legacies that are in the probate system.
“Part of that might be having indicators at the point where the person approved by probate can actually indicate if the charity is included,” said McDowell.
“That would help us understand the size of the charities within the backlog, it would also help with any trends going forward so we can workforce plan and understand our income projections.
“It would also help us understand if there’s any difference in the way charity cases if they take longer.”