Research

A council funeral (sometimes known as a public health funeral) is one that is arranged by the local authority where the person died. The council has a duty to carry out a burial or cremation if no one else is making arrangements. One reason a council funeral might be needed is if the deceased person’s family can’t afford the funeral costs.
For this research, we 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, at that time, more than half of councils in England and Wales were not fully following Government guidelines on council funerals.

This report sought to identify if anything had changed since our 2021 report, or if the problems we found were more widespread. It offers a unique insight into what it is like for a member of the public trying to get information and help, and shows that a compassionate, simple and equitable process is far from guaranteed in some parts of the country.