Most files for deceased estates in NSW are handled by solicitors, while around 10% are handled by NSW Trustee and Guardian (formerly Public Trustee NSW).
Once an estate has been administered by a private executor, the last duty is to submit to the Probate Registry of the NSW Supreme Court a statement of receipts and disbursements. Basically a statement of account is prepared like an affidavit where the executor reports on how the deceased's assets were collected, all outstanding claims were paid, and the remaining funds distributed to beneficiaries under the terms of the Will.
As this work is done an executor may be entitled to a disbursement for work undertaken.
It is understood that there is one person employed on a part-time basis at the Probate Registry who handles the disbursement to the legal representative of an executor. It is further understood that there is a twelve-month back-log of payments to be made.
How could the Attorney General Mr John Hatzistergos allow such a lamentable state of affairs to develop at the Court? Why is the Probate Registry under-resourced? What decisions have been made by the Director General Mr Laurie Glanfield that has resulted in unfilled jobs, under-staffing, and too much work expected to be undertaken by so few.
This is not exactly a Churchillian situation: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."
Yet it seems that we must say: "Never in the NSW public sector was so much expected of so few by bureaucrats who do not have to work on the coal-face serving the public."
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I suppose most people might think this is small scale stuff when compared to the budgetary mess in NSW hospitals.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, it is all part of the cumulative evidence: the NSW Labor Government passed its "use-by-date" a long time ago. Like stale milk it needs to be poured down the drain.
The leadership - if such a word can be used with any significant grammatical force - of the Attorney General's Department needs to undergo cultural change itself. Not the faddish corporate jargon of consultancy: just pure and simple clearing out of persons at the top who have by their policies and actions classified themselves among the incompetent.