Coroner’s offices merger considered
Councillors across York and North Yorkshire will consider the possibility of their coroner’s offices merging in a bid to provide consistency for families across the region and to improve standards.
Executives of both councils will explore the options for a merger of the York coroner’s office with the two coroner’s offices in North Yorkshire at their meetings this month.
The Chief Coroner and Ministry of Justice favour the merger of small coroner areas to create larger ones across England and Wales to improve consistency and standards across regions. Any merger would be expected to come into effect by April 2020.
Cllr Carl Les, North Yorkshire County Council’s Leader, said: “We believe a merger should result in a more resilient and consistent service for bereaved people.
“However, a merger would not mean that inquests would be centralised. Given the size of the area our view is that there would continue to be a need for inquests to be held in various towns within North Yorkshire as well as York.”
In 2014 the Chief Coroner and Ministry of Justice asked York to explore the possibility of merging its coroner’s office with that of Hull and East Riding but was not supported by the York Coroner, North Yorkshire Police and councillors.
The Chief Coroner and Ministry of Justice accepted this refusal on the understanding a merger with North Yorkshire would be explored in the future.
Councillor Ian Gillies, Leader of City of York Council, said: “The coroner’s service offers invaluable support to bereaved families. It has been suggested by the chief coroner that having larger coroner’s areas can improvethesupportprovidedand increase the capacity and consistencyofthesupportavailable.
“Hopefully this can be achieved with the possible merging with North Yorkshire.”