Take a moment to think how it would feel to lose a loved one and then, in your grief, to realise you cannot take responsibility for their funeral. You simply do not have the money.
Now imagine how it would feel to have the courage to seek help, but be unable to find it, be left feeling you’re an inconvenience, to be turned away. This is the experience some people have when they reach out to their local council and it needs to stop.
My team speak to people struggling with funeral costs every day. Unsurprising given that one in nine people faced with arranging a funeral in 2020 struggled with the cost.
I have an unusual, but rewarding job – managing the only UK-wide funeral costs helpline Down to Earth, run by independent charity Quaker Social Action. Last week, we published our report An abdication of duty? Local authorities and access to public health funerals, which investigates the experience bereaved people have when trying to access a public health funeral directly from their local council. While there were glimmers of light, overall the results were deeply concerning.
Contrary to the Government’s good practice guidance for England and Wales, 14 of the 40 council websites we surveyed held no information for those in need of a public health funeral and half of those that did gave no contact details for accessing one. This represents the start of the uphill struggle for someone grieving and in need. We mystery shopped the 27 councils with no information or no contact details and, due to a lack of knowledge amongst the staff we spoke to, only managed to reach the right department in 15 cases.
While this was problematic, what most concerned me was some councils’ misrepresentation of their legal duty, effectively blocking people from accessing a public health funeral when they really need one. A third of the council websites that did hold information contained inaccurate or misleading information about the circumstances in which a council must take responsibility. In addition, 10 of the 15 councils where we spoke with the correct department turned us away.
Six of those 10 rejections were because our mystery shopper was trying to refer the death himself, rather than through a coroner or hospital. This is an arbitrary distinction that has no basis in law, nor even any logic. If someone is on a low income, they do not stop being on a low income simply because of where or how a family member dies. Plus, official data shows that, in England and Wales in 2020, Coroner reported deaths decreased and home deaths increased.
The other four rejections were simply because our mystery shopper was a surviving family member, which again risks the council abdicating its legal duty by ignoring that person’s financial circumstances. In 2019/20, five million people were in food insecure households and 17.4% of working households were in relative poverty. If people can’t put food on the table how on earth can they pay several thousand pounds for a funeral?
As well as carrying out their legal duty and following the good practice guidance, we urge councils to ensure relevant staff are adequately informed about what a public health funeral is and which department deals with them; are given guidance at least, if not training, around bereavement as our mystery shopper encountered a shocking lack of compassion and only received condolences on a few occasions; and receive training around the funeral expenses payment as we were given inaccurate information on several occasions and observed the same on several websites.
I sympathise with the funding position of many local authorities due to ruthless Government cuts. However, a legal duty is just that and bereaved people should be supported by their council when they need it. If local authorities allow themselves to be forced into a corner whereby they abdicate on their duty, where is the pressure on central Government to increase their funding? We invite local authorities to work with us on this, to improve the situation for bereaved people in need.
Lindesay Mace is Down to Earth manager, Quaker Social Action