£5.4m bill for UK’s ‘pauper funerals’

NEARLY £5.4M was spent on “paupers’ funerals” by local authorities in the financial year 2017-18, a mutual insurer has found.

The total cost of public health funerals across the UK in 201718 was £5,382,379, according to Royal London, which received responses from 275 local authorities to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

Public health funerals, which are also known as paupers’ funerals, are “no frills” services provided by the local authority, which in general include a coffin and the services of a funeral director but do not include flowers, obituaries or transport for family members. Families can attend if they wish.

More than 3,800 such funerals were carried out across the UK last year, costing councils an average of £1,403. Birmingham City Council in West Midlands spent the most last year, with public health funerals costing it £990,437.

Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council was in third place with £92,000 and Bradford Council seventh at £77,224.

Armagh Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council in Northern Ireland had the lowest bill at £275. The City of London was also among the areas with the lowest spending, at £715.

A Local Government Association spokesman said: “It is a sad fact that there are thousands of people, mostly elderly, across the country with no family or friends to care for them or arrange, attend or pay for their funeral. Public health funerals are a last resort but, where there is no-one able to pay for a funeral, councils will hold one in a respectful and dignified way.”