Paupers’ funerals making comeback as families exploit loophole to save funeral costs

In Dickens’s England they were seen as the ultimate indignity reserved only for those suffering extreme destitution.


But, according to a new study, paupers’ burials are making an unlikely comeback as families exploit a legal loophole to save thousands of pounds on funeral costs.


Researchers found evidence that a small but growing number of families are turning to taxpayers to meet all the costs of burying or cremating loved-ones as the “stigma” of being unable or unwilling to contribute disappears.


But it also reported how council officials tasked with arranging what are meant to be pared-down services have voiced anger at seeing families who claimed they could not pay then turning up to the laden with expensive bouquets and other embellishments.


The study by social policy experts at the University of Bath predicts a sharp rise in the reliance of so-called “Public Health Funerals” as death rates rise because of Britain’s ageing population.


It concludes that a change in the law is required to enable bereaved families in real need to get help more simply while preventing the system being exploited by others.

Under the current rules there are two ways in which the state can help meet the cost of funerals.

A Government fund provides compassionate grants known as Funeral Payments to almost 40,000 benefit dependent families a year to assist with the cost of bereavement.

But under a separate provision, originally applied only in extreme cases where people died with no known relatives, local councils have a duty under public health law to dispose of bodies where no one else takes responsibility.

Still widely known as paupers’ funerals or welfare funerals, the deceased is given a simple service before being cremated or buried in a communal grave, depending on what is available locally.

Often the body is transported in a van rather than a hearse while the services is conducted in a vacant slot, such as early in the morning, at a local crematorium or cemetery chapel.

A study conducted by the Local Government Association in 2011 estimated that there are around 2,900 such services a year.

But researchers led by Dr Kate Woodthorpe, a sociologist at Bath, interviewed public health officials across the country who reported a discernible rise in demand for the services recently.

“One potential and significant impact of the current system is a small but growing increase in requests for Public Health Funerals, administered by local authorities,” the report warns.

“There is concern that family members are declining to organise and pay for a funeral and are turning to the local authority as an alternative ‘option’, rather than attempting

to navigate the Funeral Payment [system].

“This suggests that either stigma associated with what was once termed a ‘paupers’ funeral’ is changing, or else those that request a Public Health Funeral have no other alternative.”

Dr Woodthorpe said part of the problem may be that Funeral Payment are unwieldy and often only cover part of the cost of a funeral, which now average at almost £3,500.

But she said many of the officials had voiced frustration at seeing families demanding paupers’ funerals claiming they could not pay then turning up bearing evidently expensive wreaths to “embellish” the send-off.

“In the past it was about respectability, for a working family that was the worst thing that could happen, that you couldn’t afford to pay for someone’s funeral,” she said.

“Now 150 years later, it seems to be becoming a legitimate option for some people.”

She said the law allows for paupers’ funerals if all known relatives are unable or unwilling to pay.

“In the past it was just ‘unable’ but according to the directors they are seeing more people who are unwilling,” she said.

“What came out was that there is a concern that it is going to be seen as a ‘choice’.

“It is not necessarily the idea of getting something for nothing, it is that the system was never intended to be a ‘choice’, it was intended to be the ultimate backstop – a body needing to be disposed of, which has to happen because someone has to take responsibility for it.

“But the way that it is open for exploitation is their concern; that [the number of people] who are unwilling rather than unable is going to grow.”

In a world where the former govt virtually encouraged people to rip off the system is it any surprise that even in these circumstances those with no shame rip off the taxpayer.

As long as people on the left champion such activity what hope is there.

...Perhaps the paupers, should get together, and pay into a fund where the bodies of the dead poor...are dumped in rich areas!