Research published today, carried out by the Down to Earth team and volunteers, shows that people face a patchwork of provision across the UK when council funerals, sometimes known as public health funerals, are carried out.
Every year councils in the UK arrange thousands of funerals for people who have died in their area where no other arrangements are being made. This is a legal duty, but Down to Earth research in 2021 suggested this duty may not always have been met, and that standards varied across councils. This new report, called Patchwork of provision: Council funerals across the UK, seeks to identify if anything has changed or if the problems we found are more widespread.
In late 2023 and early 2024 the team surveyed 102 council websites across the UK, analysing any information provided about council funerals and assessing its findability. Volunteers also made phone calls to 54 councils, taking on the role of the friend of a bereaved person who needed a council funeral. Our findings suggest that more than half of councils in England and Wales are not fully following Government guidelines on council funerals. It also raises questions about whether councils across the UK are all following their legal duty regarding the deceased person’s wishes for burial or cremation and reveals the unnecessarily labyrinthine journey that people would have to go through to reach the right department at some councils.
“When someone is dying and has no family or friends to arrange their funeral, they should be able to find out from their local council what will happen to them after they die. For example, will they be buried or cremated and will their wishes be respected? A bereaved person who is unable to make funeral arrangements, for instance because they have no way of paying for them, should be able to contact someone at the council who can advise them.”
Reaching out to a council for help in these situations can demand courage and involve a host of complex emotions. The process needs to follow the law, be compassionate, simple and equitable. This report shows that some of these things are still far from guaranteed in parts of the country.