Dozens of written questions by MLAs to Stormont departments have been left unanswered after caretaker ministers were removed from office.
MLAs are no longer able to submit formal Assembly questions to departments after a deadline passed last Friday without a new power-sharing Executive being formed.
Caretaker ministers who had remained in post since elections in May ceased to hold office and senior civil servants with limited decision-making powers took control of departments.
Read more: DUP's Jeffrey Donaldson met Jamie Bryson 'days before bid to halt Brexit Protocol checks'
Around 130 questions submitted to departments received responses last Thursday and Friday saying they were unable to provide answers without ministers in post.
The DUP has been blocking the restoration of the devolved institutions in protest against Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol.
It has said it will not resume power-sharing until decisive action is taken to remove the protocol's economic barriers on trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
SDLP Foyle MLA Sinéad McLaughlin described Assembly questions as an "important tool" for MLAs to scrutinise departments and said it was "incredibly frustrating" that no further queries will be answered.
She said: "The DUP's boycott has paralysed politics here and left us unable to take action on everything from the cost-of-living emergency to our huge health service waiting lists.
"The inability for MLAs to hold ministers and departments to account through Assembly questions is just another facet of this.
"It's deeply disappointing that, due to the failure to form an Executive, ministers were unable to answer important questions to me about the triaging system used by GPs, the provision of endometriosis services, compensation for rail passengers who were delayed and the development of a women's health strategy.
"Assembly questions are an important tool for MLAs. We often use them to submit queries on behalf of our constituents, to receive information to better inform our work and to ensure that ministers are living up to their obligations and carrying out their duties.
"The inability to ask these important questions is incredibly frustrating, as is being prevented from carrying out many of the key functions that make up my role as an MLA."
In a statement, an Assembly spokeswoman confirmed that MLA questions to ministers "have no longer been accepted by the Northern Ireland Assembly's business office since 23:59:59 on October 27".
Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris, who has assumed a legal responsibility to call a fresh Assembly election within 12 weeks, is to hold further talks with Stormont party leaders on Tuesday.
He failed to set a date for an election on Friday despite repeatedly saying he would as the legislative deadline for calling a snap poll approached.
Former Sinn Fein Finance Minister Conor Murphy said the British government must follow through with calling an election.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: "We've been very clear that we want to see the Executive and the Assembly up and running. That deadline has now passed because the DUP prevented it again last Thursday, and so now the law requires us to move to an election and that’s what we need to do."
He added: "The DUP are holding out to get some certainty from a government that isn't certain itself about what it's doing, and it's preventing the rest of us from getting on with the business of providing support to people here in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis."
The DUP's former Economy Minister Gordon Lyons suggested the UK Government had wrongly believed that its election warning would force his party to drop its block on power-sharing.
He said: "I think that the feeling within the Northern Ireland Office was a threat of an election would change the DUP's mind – it's not going to."
Mr Lyons said talk of an election was a "distraction" from the "real work" the government needed to do to resolve issues with the Protocol.
He added: "We want to make sure that we are in a position to get an Assembly and an Executive in place, but there can’t be a solid basis for an Executive or an Assembly until the protocol is replaced with arrangements that restore Northern Ireland's place in the UK internal market and see our constitutional arrangements respected."
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