Resurgam Vol 63 No.3 AUTUMN 2020

The Journal of the Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities – Volume 63 No.3 AUTUMN 2020

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RESURGAM

THE JOURNAL OF THE FEDERATION OF BURIAL AND CREMATION AUTHORITIES

Contents THE FEDERATION OF BURIAL AND CREMATION AUTHORITIES President FBCA: Alan José Westerleigh Group Ambassador Deputy President: Cllr David Marren Cheshire East Council

Contents page

1

Resurgam Survey

2

Sally Curtis – A Tribute Alan José FICCM

3

President’s Report – July 2020 Alan José FICCM

4

Would you allow a vegetable garden to be planted on a traditional grave in ‘your’ cemetery?

6

Provisional Conclusions Issued in CMA Funerals Market Investigation

8

Code of Burial Practice

10

Book Review: These Silent Mansions – A life in graveyards Gilliam Wolfe CBE – Learning, Arts and Heritage Consultant

12

COVID 19 Update

14

Ninety-Sixth Annual General Meeting Update

14

COVID 19 Guidance on Managing a Funeral – Updated 11 August 2020

15

Sands – Communication while wearing PPE

20

Solitary Funerals and How The Pandemic Has Changed Grieving Sarvesh Talreja – Freelance Writer, Mumbai

22

Deceased Management Advisory Group Interim Lessons Learned Report Feedback

24

New South Wales Government – Updated Guidance on Funerals to Reflect Infection Rates

33

Test Training Scheme Update

35

President’s Report – August 2020 Alan José FICCM

36

Published by THE FEDERATION OF BURIAL AND CREMATION AUTHORITIES Printed by: RTW Printers, Orion Way, Kettering Business Park, Kettering, Northants NN15 6NL

Cremation and Burial Communication and Education Event 2019 Planning for Burial and Cremation Space Lee Searles, BA, PGDip, MRTPI, Director of Planning, Enzygo Ltd.

38

Cremation Society Update

48

ISSN 0034-5962

Burial and Cremation - The Environmental Questions Brendan Day – Secretary and Executive Officer

49

Notes of the Meeting of the Executive Committee Held on 28 April 2020

53

Code of Cremation Practice

56

We are here to help you – FBCA Member Services

BC

Secretary and Executive Officer: Brendan Day Britannia House, Caerphilly, CF83 3GG Tel: 02921 679105 E-mail: secretary@fbca.org.uk Editor: Kate Waller 9 Cornflower Avenue, Hampton Vale, Peterborough PE7 8PB Tel: 01733 229646 Mobile: 07787 123331 E-mail: resurgam@fbca.org.uk

www.fbca.org.uk

Unless expressly stated the views put forward in Resurgam are not necessarily the considered views or policy of the Federation nor is the Federation responsible for the claims of its advertisers.

Publication dates of Resurgam are programmed for March, June, September and December. It would aid prompt publication if items for the respective issues were received by 15th February, May, August and November. Articles, news items, advertisements or other contributions may be accepted after those dates particularly if the Editor is made aware of the possible late arrival of material for publication.

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Resurgam Survey The Federation recognises that there are always changes which can be made to improve the overall sustainability of the organisation and, like all environmentally aware organisations, the Federation wants to do more for the environment.

Members will be aware that the Federation produces four copies of Resurgam per annum to which are produced as paper copies which are posted individually to all members.

It is apparent that using up significant quantities of paper printing Resurgam is not the most sustainable option when there are electronic alternatives. We are therefore are asking members if they would be happy to switch to an electronic version of Resurgam, to be viewed online with the facility for the whole quarterly edition or individual articles to be downloaded and printed off as required.

To provide an indication of the members views for consideration by the Executive Committee please complete the questionnaire below:

Do you want to receive a digital Resurgam, which can be viewed anywhere on a range of smart devices and is also printable as a PDF (ie no hard copy)?

I Yes I No

Do you want to continue receiving a hard copy of Resurgam I Yes I No

If you want to continue receiving a hard copy of Resurgam, would you like the option to view a digital copy online?

I Yes I No

Name of person completing survey: Member organisation:

Please send a copy of your responses by email to resurgam@fbca.org.uk or copy/tear out and post this page and send it to: Resurgam Editor 9 Cornflower Avenue Hampton Vale Peterborough, PE7 8PB

To allow your views to be considered by the Executive please submit your response by 8 October 2020 2

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Sally Curtis A Tribute by Alan José FICCM In our Industry over the years many people's names have become synonymous with the Crematorium or Cemetery at which they worked and this was certainly the case was with Sally Curtis. Just about anyone in our profession knew Sally from Mansfield Crematorium, even if they had not actually met her!

It was with great sadness that I learned that Sally had died at the beginning of August, losing her bravely fought battle against Cancer, the battle that she and her family hoped and prayed had been won twice before it came back earlier this year and sadly took her from us.

Sally was born on 4th December 1964 and she lived and grew up with her parents John and Dorothy Marsh in Mansfield Woodhouse, where she went to school. Sally did well at school and it was where she learned to Dance in the ‘Strictly’ style which she loved, later on a member of the Mansfield Choral Society.

On leaving school Sally enrolled on a Secretarial and Admin Course at West Nottinghamshire College. On successful completion she joined the staff at Mansfield Crematorium as an Administrative Assistant and Secretary

to the Director. Sally realised that she had found her vocation and she excelled in the different roles that she undertook over the years before she was herself, in due time, appointed Director and Registrar of Cemeteries for Mansfield District Council. In her role Sally undertook many challenges and oversaw large projects such as the extension to the Thorsby Chapel and the new car park, she was working on plans for a new cemetery and a children’s area within the cemetery grounds before she died.

Sally had many interests, and it was while involved in scoring games at the Mansfield Basketball Club, that she met Ian who was to become her husband. They became engaged in 1995 and were married in 1997. Sally and Ian’s son Matthew was born in 2001.

Sally was always busy, she and Ian transformed the shell of a house into a wonderful home and developed the garden, in which Sally loved to potter, where tomatoes and soft fruits shared space with the orchids that Sally said bloomed due to her structured neglect!

As well as looking after a busy crematorium, Sally was for many years a Technical Officer for the Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities and she managed meetings and tasks on their behalf, working as always in the best interests of the bereaved. Sally was a regular attendee at Industry Conferences and events where she was widely known.

We will miss her.

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PRESIDENT’S REPORT – JULY 2020 Alan José FICCM

At their meeting held on Tuesday 30th June 2020, the FBCA Executive Committee agreed unanimously to approve an application for full membership of the Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities which had been submitted by Bramcote Bereavement Services in respect of Bramcote Crematorium.

I was delighted to visit the crematorium on Monday 20 July 2020 at the invitation of the Bereavement Services Manager, Louise Singer, to present her with a Certificate of Full Membership of the FBCA. (photo) and to welcome the Bramcote Crematorium Joint Committee into Membership. The Crematorium scored highly during the Inspection which was carried out earlier this year before the lockdown brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.

The crematorium was built in 1979 in a joint venture

by Broxtowe Borough Council and Erewash Borough Council. Of contemporary design and set in 18 acres of mature gardens, the facility serves a large area to the west of Nottingham.

Louise gave me a full tour of the buildings and grounds which on a lovely sunny summer’s day looked beautiful.

The buildings have stood the test of time well, the brickwork building comprising many distinctive architectural features. There are two chapels, the Serenity Chapel which seats 120 people and is a large bright octagonal shape and the Reflection Chapel which can accommodate 48 people, a smaller and more intimate version of the larger chapel.

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The crematorium offers a wide range of memorials within the landscaped grounds where there is a constant programme of improvements to ensure the best possible services are provided.

The attractive Children’s Memorial Garden is a draw for visiting families with the family friendly seating and bright feature colours.

The latest addition to the grounds is a new memorial option in the form of a mulberry tree.

The Mulberry Tree Memorial is a realistic tree with a hand carved granite trunk. The branches are made from weathered corten steel adorned with 200 attractive granite leaves.

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Would you allow a vegetable garden to be planted on a traditional grave in ‘your’ cemetery? area and how these were viewed by visitors. This is particularly relevant as the post received a significant number of comments, with many indicating they would do the same next year with their family graves.

As I have not seen such a specific planting arrangement before and feel this may be quite new to UK cemeteries, whilst researching ‘graveyard gardens’ I discovered the Miller Street Cemetery in Howick, South Africa. Here the local council has gone one step further and have provided a vegetable patch for public use within their cemetery. The plot, together with others around Howick are tended by council workers and the produce free to anyone who can make use of it.

Developed as part of a local municipal project to provide ‘share gardens’ throughout the town, the cemetery vegetable garden is planted over a septic tank which could not be used for graves. This site has received mixed comments from visitors and local residents.

Some of whom enjoy the garden and benefit from the produce, whilst others who see it as disrespectful, and / or a waste of time and money, especially in a cemetery where many families fail to tend their plots leaving them overgrown and unsightly.

There was a photograph of a well-tended grave which featured low growing ‘tumbler’ tomatoes, mixed with traditional companion planting of basil, nasturtiums and geraniums, posted on the Allotment Facebook Group that I belong to recently.

What are your views on this? Should councils focus on putting old and neglected graves in order or would such a flourishing vegetable plot in a cemetery be classed as a useful local resource that encourages visitors to visit a cemetery?

Would you allow the planting of vegetables on graves on sites you control? Should community gardens, vegetable or otherwise we promoted in cemeteries?

Please send your views and feedback to: resurgam@fbca.org.uk

Further posts on the Facebook page, included the posting of this further photograph, showing of a beautiful herb garden planted within kerbstones on a grave in traditional section of another cemetery.

These photographs led to a great deal of discission on the suitability of growing vegetables on graves and I wondered if Resurgam readers were aware of any vegetable or herb ‘allotment’ garden planted in their 6

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Provisional Conclusions Issued in CMA Funerals Market Investigation On 13 August the CMA published their Provisional Conclusions to their Funerals Market Investigation which included the following summary from Martin Coleman, the CMA Panel Chair, which outlined the findings: “Given the inherently distressing circumstances in which people arrange a funeral, we want to make sure they can be confident that they are not being overcharged and that their loved one is cared for properly – this is what our investigation has focused on.

are exposed to greater scrutiny, helping people to make the right choices during an incredibly difficult time.

Further change in the sector is necessary but some of the remedies we were considering could not safely be introduced in the middle of a national emergency.

Our proposals will hold open the door to price controls when circumstances created by the pandemic change sufficiently to permit these to be considered.”

The later stages of the investigation have been conducted in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, which has caused a tragic increase in death rates and has materially changed how funerals are carried out. This has had a big impact on how far we can immediately address some of the issues we have identified.

Background

But there are remedies that are feasible and effective in the short term. We are proposing a package of ‘sunlight’ remedies which will shine a light for consumers on the pricing and practices of the sector and make sure that deceased people are cared for properly. This will ensure that the prices of funeral directors and crematoria, and the quality of the service that funeral directors provide,

The investigation focused on how people approach the purchase of a funeral under the extremely difficult circumstances following the death of a loved one. A funeral can be a significant cost made during a very distressing time, and so it is important that those who purchase funeral services are confident that the prices are reasonable and the quality is appropriate.

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In March 2019, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) set out to investigate concerns it had about the funeral services sector following a market study into the effectiveness of competition in the sector.

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The investigation identified a number of issues: • Due to the inherent emotional distress people experience when arranging a funeral, they understandably tend not to spend time comparing providers. They typically choose to use a funeral director that has been recommended or is familiar to them. For crematoria, people generally select one that is closest to them geographically.

• Pricing and product information is not provided consistently by funeral directors in a way that allows people to compare different offers.

• The fees charged by funeral directors and crematoria increased at a rate well above inflation for at least a decade.

• Most people believe that funeral directors are regulated, but that is not the case in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The investigation found that, although many funeral directors meet good standards, some are providing unacceptably low levels of care of the deceased.

• Regarding crematoria, there are high barriers to entry in the form of the planning regime, as well as building and operating costs, meaning that crematoria are generally few and far between. Most people have little or no choice about which crematorium to use as there is often only one option within a reasonable distance.

The CMA published its provisional conclusions as part of its in-depth market investigation into funeral services on 13 August 2020.

The exceptional circumstances of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which were unforeseen when the CMA market investigation began, has had a significant impact on the investigation: • Due to the tragic number of deaths from coronavirus since March, there has been an unprecedented increase in demand for funerals. This has made it difficult to obtain necessary data from funeral directors, crematoria operators and local authorities.

• The restrictions imposed by government during the pandemic has changed the kinds of funeral services available to people. This has also made it challenging to effectively conduct research and testing into possible remedies.

• It is difficult to forecast accurately the future revenue and profitability of funeral directors and crematoria operators. This has significant ramifications for the design and implementation of price controls as a possible remedy.

This combination of circumstances highlights a serious dilemma. On the one hand, it is clear that the funerals sector is not working well and that reforms will be needed. On the other hand, the pandemic has created insurmountable obstacles to some of the solutions needed to design and implement far-reaching reform of the sector at this stage.

Whilst the CMA has no legal power to suspend or further extend this market investigation, some of the remedies the CMA was considering, such as price controls, could not safely be introduced during a national emergency.

The report setting out the CMA’s provisional conclusions on this market investigation provisionally recommends that when conditions are more stable, the CMA should consider whether a supplementary market investigation is needed.

The CMA’s provisional conclusions therefore have three elements: • Setting out clearly and fully in today’s provisional report the problems that the CMA has identified in its investigation.

• Identifying the kind of remedies most likely to address these problems, including the introduction of price controls, whilst recognising that coronavirus inevitably means that some of these cannot be designed and implemented in the short term.

• Implementing a set of practical and effective steps that can be taken immediately in order to protect people, such as requiring funeral directors and crematoria to be transparent in their pricing.

The CMA has provisionally decided that, in the short term, it will require all funeral directors and crematoria to provide customers with information on, and the prices of, the various services and packages they offer. This will go a long way to ensuring people have easily accessible information on services and costs to help them decide which type of funeral arrangement they require.

The CMA proposes to continue active monitoring of the funerals sector with an obligation on funeral directors and crematoria to provide the CMA with key financial data every quarter.

Other proposals include a provisional recommendation that the UK Government and the devolved administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland establish an inspection and registration regime to monitor the quality of funeral director services. A similar regime already exists in Scotland.

• Some of the remedies considered by the CMA would need to be implemented by other organisations, such as local authorities, devolved administrations and central government. These have very limited capacity at this time due to the coronavirus.

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THE FEDERATION OF BURIAL AND CREMATION AUTHORITIES Code of Burial Practice Burial Authorities should recognise the importance of the service provided and ensure that all procedures are performed in accordance with the requirements of the relevant legislation.

1. Cemetery staff The greatest care must be taken in the appointment of members of the cemetery staff, any one of whom may, by conduct or demeanour, detract from the atmosphere of reverence which it is endeavoured to create. All staff employed in grave digging and cemetery duties must be suitably trained in the technical and ethical procedures and preferably certificated by a recognised training provider.

2. Conduct The burial of human remains is a highly emotional occasion for everyone involved and this should not be forgotten by staff working within cemeteries, who should work together to create and maintain an atmosphere of reverence and respect throughout.

3. Correct identity No coffin, casket or shroud etc shall be accepted at any cemetery unless it bears adequate particulars of the identity of the deceased person contained therein. If a coffin is encased, the cover and the coffin must bear adequate identity of the deceased person. Every care should be taken to ensure correct identification throughout, from the moment the coffin is received at the cemetery until the final interment within the grave.

4. After committal (a) Having ensured that the correct authority to inter has been received, the coffin and its contents shall be placed into the grave exactly as received at the cemetery. The deceased shall not be removed from the grave following the act of committal except for a lawful purpose and when the correct legal requirements are in place to permit such an act. (b) Once a coffin containing the deceased has been placed within the grave, it will not be disturbed. (c) The grave will be backfilled with soil, or in the case of a bricked grave, mausoleum or vault, shall be sealed immediately following the completion of the service, either by the cemetery staff or the family and mourners if such instructions have been received from the owner of the Exclusive Right of Burial and a suitable risk assessment has been carried out. Following the completion of backfilling or sealing, the grave should be left in a neat and tidy condition with wreaths and flowers carefully placed on it by the cemetery staff.

5. Mechanical apparatus Only “authorised” employees of the Burial Authority who have received appropriate training shall operate plant or vehicles. “Authorised” is deemed to mean, an employee that is receiving instruction and is supervised by a qualified operator, or an employee that holds a suitable driving assessment permit relating to the vehicle or item of plant. All mechanical apparatus used in the cemetery shall be regularly overhauled, cleaned and kept in good repair to ensure perfect working order.

6. Statutory regulations No burial shall take place without the consent of the person responsible for the cemetery. All burials shall be carried out according to the regulations applicable to the individual Burial Authority.

Issued October 2013 10

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BOOK REVIEW

These Silent Mansions A life in graveyards Jean Sprackland Johnathan Cape 2020

Gillian Wolfe CBE Learning, Arts & Heritage Consultant

There is a moment in this entrancing book when the author is driving past a cemetery with her six year old son and he says in astonishment, ‘look how many people have died!’

John Donne calls them ‘numberless infinities of souls’ and any visit to a cemetery cannot but link us to thoughts of the ephemeral nature of life and the manner in which lives are recorded at death. This is a delightful and deeply thought provoking book.

Jean Sprackland has moved home many times and here she invites the reader to follow her life journey around the country by describing her local burial sites, in so doing she initiates a discussion about how society has and is dealing with memorialising those who have died.

She has a light touch about her personal history giving just enough information to humanise the account and for the reader to get to know her a little but not enough to make this an autobiography. She’s a good storyteller and must have spent a huge amount of time researching some of the lives marked by the gravestone.

Not lives of the great and good but of ordinary local people. Sometimes of those with the briefest of lives, such as tiny Agnes, a malformed dwarf who died aged 19 months in 1851or Elizabeth Pickett whose life ended aged 23 in 1751when her clothes caught fire; to the author’s own great grandmother Ethelind buried in 1902 in a paupers grave. Not being famous meant her chosen subjects required considerable detective work, either from churchyard burials or from the Victorian cemeteries that bore the strain of numbers in a rapidly expanding industrial society that was, by and large, culturally Christian with a homogenous burial aesthetic.

Sprackland’s view is that the dilapidated state of graveyards confront us with our collective failure to remember the dead and respect them as we should. Numerous Victorian tombs are indecipherable, headstones listing perilously towards the earth are a common sight; many are only just visible hidden in brambles and ivy. No one 12

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has righted these monuments or cleared them or even stacked up the strewn marble slabs that were once carefully hewn by stonemasons at considerable cost.

In the time of immediate grief it is always the intention of the family to care for the graves of loved ones but life takes over, apparently most graves are never visited after fifteen years let alone looked after, many are not visited at all. It seems that only military headstones are given perpetual care.

We are well reminded that burial sites are some of the most bio-diverse natural habitats, allowing flora and fauna to thrive unmolested more completely perhaps than in any other town environment.

Sprackland describes the cycle of nature, free from intrusion, so evocatively that the deep contemplative pleasure of a peaceful walk in a local cemetery-cum nature reserve is compelling.

How long will burial sites retain this magic?

Sprackland describes today’s rows of high-tech mass produced black polished granite with computer designed text and stylised images of flowers, cherubs, doves, toys, mascots and photographs.

These already tell a new social story of modern burial in the age of individualism. Sprackland’s book spans 200 years, two centuries hence will such another account as this be as eloquent?

If society can retain these traditional Silent Mansions so graphically described here the charm and poignant beauty of the ancient churchyard and Victorian cemetery aesthetic will remain an important social history book in stone.

Gillian Wolfe CBE Learning, Arts & Heritage Consultant

Editor’s Note: Our reviewer, Gillian Wolfe, CBE, was the Director of Learning and Public Affairs at Dulwich Picture Gallery for over 30 years before stepping down to focus on her freelance portfolio in 2014.

At Dulwich Picture Gallery she set-up the education programme that became a national model of excellence with in-house and community programmes reaching out to diverse social and ethnic communities across London, receiving 29 awards and commendations for pioneering programmes that bring fine art and creativity into the lives of the most hard to reach sections of society, setting a new standard for museums.

In developing a close and active relationship between the museum and community she devised an enormously wide span of public engagement and participation in arts, health and wellbeing.

In her advisory work for foundations, trusts and public funding bodies Gillian has advised over 150 cultural organisations across the UK and has written eight art books for children.

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COVID-19 – Update Kate Waller – Resurgam Editor

In our COVID 19 update for this edition there are a range of articles, some focusing on the practical side of bereavement during a pandemic and others reflecting how best to support bereaved families who, due to cultural differences, may be experiencing a greater impact on traditional forms of mourning than others.

Included is a copy of the excellent Sands reference document ‘Communication while wearing PPE’ developed following feedback from parents and professionals who informed SANDS that PPE is having an impact on communication especially around bereavement. It was designed with health care professionals in mind, however bereavement sector teams will, I am sure, also find it useful.

Also featured is an article from a Mumbai journalist on how the virus has impacted on communal mourning, and details of the New South Wales Government’s advice on funerals, current at the end of August 2020. This gives an interesting comparison to the current UK guidance, also published in this edition.

I hope you find these insights interesting and relevant when dealing with the ongoing coronavirus situation.

• COVID 19 Guidance on Managing a Funeral (updated 11 August 2020) • Sands – Communication while wearing PPE • Solitary Funerals and How the Pandemic Has Changed Grieving Sarvesh Talreja – Freelance Journalist, Mumbai • Deceased Management Advisory Group Interim Lessons Learned Interim Report • Funerals, Memorial Services and Wakes – What has changed for funerals, memorial services and wakes in NSW? • TEST Training Scheme Update

NINETY-SIXTH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING Monday 19th October 2020 The ninety-sixth Annual General Meeting of the Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities was due to be held at the Hilton, Ageas Bowl, on Monday 29th June 2020 prior to the opening of the Federation & Cremation Society Joint Conference. However, due to the pandemic restrictions it was necessary to cancel the Joint Conference and reschedule the AGM. The AGM will now take place on Monday 19th October 2020. It was hoped to hold the meeting at Nantwich, Cheshire but in view of the continuing uncertainties surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic it may be necessary to hold the AGM via video conference, a first for the FBCA and many other organisations responding to the pandemic.

Members will be advised of further details closer to the time.

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COVID-19 Guidance on Managing a Funeral – Updated 11 August 2020 This is national guidance. If local restrictions are in place in your area, check information on local restrictions (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-restrictions-areas-with-an-outbreak-of-coronavirus-covid-19).

What has changed This guidance has been updated in line with the Health Protection Regulations 2020 and The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings in a Relevant Place) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 Changes include: • allowing both family and friends to attend a funeral • the number of people who can attend a funeral • allowing mourners to stay overnight outside their home • the safe management of the funeral venue • the change in requirement to self-isolate for 10 days (previously 7) for those with symptoms of COVID-19 • the requirement to wear face coverings in indoor places of worship, crematoria and burial ground chapels This guidance is of a general nature and should be treated as a guide, and in the event of conflict between any applicable legislation (including the health and safety legislation) and this guidance, the applicable legislation shall prevail.

This guidance applies in England.

Main principles This advice is designed to assist people who are involved in managing or organising a funeral related to a death from any cause during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

This guidance has been developed to ensure that: • bereaved people are treated with sensitivity, dignity and respect • mourners and workers involved in the management of funerals are protected from avoidable risk of infection Guidance for care of the deceased is available with further guidance and information on the NHS Test and Trace programme for employers, businesses and workers, as well as for the public.

This guidance remains under review and may be updated in line with the changing situation.

What you need to know The following guidance aims to balance the needs of the bereaved to mourn appropriately while minimising the spread of COVID-19 infection. Communities, organisations and individuals are strongly advised to take action to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19 infection among mourners who are gathered to pay AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

their respects, with a particular focus on protecting people who are clinically vulnerable or clinical extremely vulnerable and more likely to develop severe illness.

When gathering to mourn, your main concern should be to limit risks around the transmission of the virus. Those risks increase whenever households mix. A household means those people who usually live together under the same roof and share facilities with you. If you have family members who do not normally live with you they need to be treated as a separate household.

These actions include: • ensuring venue capacity and attendance numbers allow social distancing (at least 2 metres or 3 steps) to be maintained between individuals. See further detail under the section on management of the venue • ensuring that those attending are reminded of the need to wear a face covering. See further detail under the section on social distancing for mourners • a modest number of close friends and family of the deceased may attend although funerals should have no more than 30 people in attendance. Attendance should also be within the capacity limits of the premises so that social distancing can be strictly adhered to. In some cases that may be less than 30 people. See further detail under the section on management of the venue • mourners who are self-isolating due to someone in their household or support bubble being unwell with symptoms of COVID-19 or as advised by NHS Test and Trace, but are not symptomatic themselves, should be facilitated to attend the funeral in person should they wish to do so, with processes put in place to minimise the risk of transmission • mourners who are clinically vulnerable or clinically extremely vulnerable should also be facilitated to attend, with processes put in place to minimise the risk of transmission • any mourner who has COVID-19 symptoms (a new continuous cough, a high temperature, or a loss of, or change in, their normal sense of taste or smell) should not attend the funeral as they pose a risk to others; remote participation should be considered • mourners who have travelled to England from countries that are not exempt from the requirement to self-isolate (in the last 14 days) may attend the funeral • mourners should also follow the advice on social distancing when travelling to and from the funeral gathering. See the section on travelling to and from the funeral

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Pre-funeral and post-funeral ceremonies may be held in line with the guidance on Staying alert and safe (social distancing). However, families may consider deferring a celebration or memorial service, until further social restrictions are lifted and at a time when attendance can take place safely.

For the position of what is lawful, you should refer specifically to the Regulations (see at the end of this guidance for details).

Mourners coming from outside England Mourners coming into England who have travelled to England from countries that are not exempt from the requirement to self-isolate (within the last 14 days) are required to self-isolate for 14 days from the day they were last in a non-exempt country. However, such mourners can leave their place of self-isolation in limited circumstances including on compassionate grounds. This includes attending a funeral.

Further information is available in the Staying alert and safe (social distancing) guidance.

The mourner can only leave their place of self-isolation when attending the funeral and is otherwise expected to self-isolate for the remainder of the 14-day period unless another exemption applies.

Background There is an increased risk of transmission of COVID-19 where families and communities come together following the death of a loved one, from any cause. While recognising the importance of these rituals and gatherings, it is strongly advised that the actions detailed in this guidance are taken to reduce the spread of infection, particularly to clinically vulnerable and clinically extremely vulnerable people who are at risk of severe illness.

Mourners who are symptomatic Anyone showing symptoms of COVID-19 (a new continuous cough, a high temperature or a loss of, or change in, their normal sense of taste or smell) should not attend the funeral due to the risk that they pose to others; remote participation should be considered, for example, via live streaming.

For deaths that are suspected or confirmed as being due to COVID-19, it is recognised that household members of the deceased person may have already been exposed to COVID-19 during the course of the preceding illness.

However, steps should be taken to minimise any new exposure, especially where individuals who are not part of the household and those at risk of severe illness may come into contact with the virus.

The government has advised that funeral services should continue and has requested that local authorities consider how they can facilitate this.

Funerals with physical attendance of mourners should continue but it remains important that those attending adhere to this guidance and the Regulations.

To ensure that organisations managing funerals are able to facilitate the needs and wishes of families, it is important that funerals are not delayed. We understand how difficult funeral arrangements will be for families and friends of lost loved ones, however, the current guidance will remain in place for the foreseeable future as we continue to respond to the challenges of COVID-19.

Who can attend?

The grieving process and related formal and informal rituals through which we mourn the passing of loved ones are important for the health and wellbeing of the bereaved. Interruption of this process is linked with negative impacts on both the physical and mental health of the bereaved.

It is advised only a modest number of family and friends of the deceased should travel to and attend the funeral.

Overnight stays away from the home are also permitted, though it is advised this should only be with your own household or support bubble, or with members of one other household (in which case social distancing should be maintained).

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Anyone showing symptoms of COVID-19 should immediately self-isolate at home for at least 10 days and request a test online, or by contacting NHS 119 via telephone if they do not have internet access.

Mourners who are self-isolating due to a possible case of COVID-19 in their household Mourners of the deceased person may include those who are self-isolating due to another member of the household or support bubble being unwell with symptoms of COVID-19 or as advised by NHS Test and Trace. Where the funeral is scheduled before the period of household or support bubble isolation has been completed (14 days from when the first person in that household or support bubble started showing symptoms) mourners who are self-isolating should be facilitated to attend.

Mourners who are from a household or support bubble that is self-isolating should: • not attend if they have any symptoms of COVID-19, even if these are very mild • maintain a distance of at least 2 metres (3 steps) between themselves and others.

• advise the other mourners that they are otherwise still within the 14-day isolation period, and ensure that they do not attend at the same time as another mourner who may be clinically vulnerable or clinically extremely vulnerable • only break self-isolation when attending the funeral and otherwise continue to self-isolate • practise strict hand and respiratory hygiene: • wash their hands more often than usual with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, or use a hand sanitiser • avoid touching their eyes, nose, and mouth • cover their coughs or sneezes. Guidance for households with possible coronavirus infection is available

AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

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Mourners who are from a household or support bubble that is self-isolating must wear a face covering by law when attending indoor places of worship, crematoria and burial ground chapels unless exempt for health, disability or other reasons.

Mourners who are clinically extremely vulnerable People who are clinically extremely vulnerable should have received a letter telling them they are in this group or been told by their GP. Mourners who are clinically extremely vulnerable should be facilitated to attend, should they wish to do so, but have been advised that they should minimise their contact with people outside their household or support bubble for their personal protection.

While shielding advice remains in place they are advised not to attend at the same time as mourners who are otherwise self-isolating due to being household or support bubble or non-household contacts of a case, as they could be incubating disease.

Mourners who are clinically extremely vulnerable should maintain strict social distancing and follow the latest guidance available.

Actions to reduce their risk of infection could include: • advising other attendees that there is a clinically extremely vulnerable person attending and reiterating the need to stay at home if they are unwell with symptoms of COVID-19, and to be respectful of the vulnerable person’s need to avoid close contact at any point • advising the mourner to travel to the venue via the safest route possible, preferably in a car by themselves, or with someone from their household or support bubble • considering the additional risk involved if attending the funeral requires travelling by public transport Mourners who are clinically vulnerable or clinically extremely vulnerable should adhere to rigorous hand and respiratory hygiene measures at all times, but particularly while out of the home environment. Hand sanitiser or sanitising wipes should be used regularly while outside of the home. A face covering must be worn by law when in indoor places of worship, crematoria and burial ground chapels unless exempt for health, disability or other reasons.

Further information is available in the guidance on shielding and protecting people who are clinically extremely vulnerable from COVID-19.

Participation without attendance Additional measures that allow participation in the funeral service without attendance should be considered, such as: • allowing additional mourners to participate remotely alongside those physically present, for example, by live-streaming the service. Priority should be given to mourners who are clinically extremely vulnerable • while pre-funeral or post-funeral ceremonies may be held in line with the guidance on Staying alert and 18

safe (social distancing), families may consider deferring a celebration or memorial service until further social measures are relaxed and at a time when attendance can take place safely Social distancing for mourners Social distancing measures reduce the transmission of COVID-19 and include: • ensuring at least 2 metres (3 steps) away from others • following the guidance on hand hygiene and preventing the spread of infection: • washing one’s hands more often than usual, for 20 seconds using soap and water or hand sanitiser, particularly after coughing, sneezing and blowing one’s nose, or after being in public areas • when coughing or sneezing, cover the mouth and nose with a tissue and throw the tissue away immediately, or in the absence of a tissue, use the crook of one’s elbow (not hands) to cough or sneeze into. Then wash both hands or use hand sanitiser • face coverings must be worn by law in indoor places of worship, crematoria and burial ground chapels unless exempt for health, disability or other reasons. Face coverings should also be worn in other enclosed public spaces where social distancing may be difficult and where you come into contact with people you do not normally meet. There is additional guidance on the use of face coverings Travelling to and from a funeral Mourners should also follow the advice on social distancing when travelling to and from the funeral.

Wherever possible, mourners should travel to the venue in a car by themselves or with people from their household or support bubble (if applicable). If this is not possible and funeral transport is required: • the number of people in each car should be kept as low as possible • there should be good ventilation (keep the windows open) • if possible, maintain social distance between passengers, maximising the distance through appropriate seating positions • mourners who are not from the same household or support bubble should face away from each other • vehicles should be cleaned regularly using gloves and standard cleaning products with particular emphasis on handles and other surfaces that passengers may touch • the driver and passengers should wash their hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds before and after the journey or use hand sanitiser. They should cover their mouth and nose with disposable tissues when coughing or sneezing or with the crook of their elbow if no tissues are available • they should avoid touching their faces and dispose of used tissues in a bin immediately If mourners are using shared transport with others that they do not normally meet and where social distancing is not possible, they should consider wearing a face covering. If public transport is necessary, mourners are advised that wearing a face covering is mandatory on AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

public transport in England, unless you are exempt for health, disability or other reasons.

There is additional guidance on the use of face coverings.

Management of the venue There remains an increased risk of transmission of coronavirus (COVID-19) where families and communities come together following the death of a loved one, from any cause. While recognising the importance of these rituals and gatherings, it is strongly advised, in order to stay safe, that numbers of mourners in physical attendance are kept to a modest number.

Those organising a funeral should adhere to the following: • ensuring venue capacity and attendance numbers allow at least 2 metres (3 steps) to be maintained between individuals • the size and circumstance of the venue will determine the maximum number that can be accommodated while also facilitating social distancing, but numbers should be minimised. Venues will need to consider how best to manage this, including through use of remote live-streaming, where possible. Attendees should be enabled to follow the guidance on staying alert and safe • it is advised that the number of attendees should be restricted to a maximum of 30 persons for public health reasons • the Regulations set out a maximum 30 people limit in respect of private homes, including gardens • venues that are able to follow COVID-19 Secure guidelines may host larger groups. Separate guidance on places of worship is available • this is also the case for events in public outdoor spaces that are organised by businesses, charitable or political organisations, and public bodies, provided they take reasonable steps to mitigate the risk of transmission, in line with COVID-19 Secure guidance and including completion of a risk assessment. Any other gathering in an outdoor space must not be any larger than 30 people • if there is limited capacity for remote access, priority should be given to mourners who are clinically extremely vulnerable • activities such as singing, chanting, requiring raised voices or playing of instruments that are blown into should be specifically avoided. This is because these activities pose a possible additional risk of infection even if social distancing is being observed or face coverings are used • remind mourners that face coverings must be worn in indoor places of worship, crematoria and burial ground chapels. There is additional guidance on the use of face coverings. Please be mindful that there are valid exemptions for some individuals and groups to not wear a face covering in these settings or to remove it, for example if a mourner becomes distressed. Venue managers should treat such necessary actions with sympathy and understanding • venues should ensure that steps are taken to avoid activities needing or causing people to project their voices loudly. This includes – but is not limited to – AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

•

•

•

• •

•

•

refraining from playing music or broadcasts that may encourage raised voices, including if played at a volume that makes normal conversation difficult venues should communicate and encourage compliance with limits on gatherings, for example, on arrival or at booking. Mourners who attend should be signposted to the advice on social distancing and informed that they should not attend the funeral if they are unwell with symptoms of COVID-19 venue managers should ensure that handwashing facilities with soap and water or hand sanitiser are available and clearly signposted. Venue toilets should be kept open and carefully managed to reduce the risk of transmission of COVID-19. This may include: • using signs and posters to build awareness of good hygiene and social distancing practices • limited entry approaches while not creating additional bottlenecks • setting up and monitoring more frequent cleaning schedules including waste management and collection venue managers should ensure that processes are in place to allow suitable time for cleaning and disinfecting the area in which the service takes place, both before and after each service, paying attention to frequently-touched objects and surfaces, using regular cleaning products venue managers should maximise ventilation rates of the premises by opening windows and doors where possible venue managers should consider how to manage the flow of groups in and out of their venues to minimise overlap between different groups and allow for adequate cleaning venues should consider the cumulative impact of movement on public transport and in public spaces.

This means consideration of further mitigation including advising mourners to avoid particular forms of transport, routes or crowded areas in transit to the venue employers should assess the use of face coverings at work on a case by case basis depending on the workplace environment, other appropriate mitigations they have put in place, and whether reasonable exemptions apply. Staff should follow guidance from their employer based on a workplace health and safety assessment. Public health advice is that staff should wear a face covering in enclosed public spaces where social distancing may be difficult and where they come into contact with people they do not normally meet

• venue managers can also enter into a suitable arrangement with others carrying out services in their venue, eg funeral directors, and those leading or reading at a funeral service, ensuring that mitigations are in place and actions are taken as appropriate to the venue and detailed above Venues are requested to keep a temporary record of staff shift patterns and visitors for 21 days, in a way that is manageable for the business, and assist NHS Test and Trace with requests for that data if needed. This could help to contain outbreaks of infection.

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Local authorities are advised to ensure funerals follow this guidance and the Regulations, to minimise the risk of infection.

Personal care of deceased people Mourners are advised not to take part in rituals or practices that bring them into close contact with the deceased. Where there are aspects of faith which include close contact with the deceased, that contact should be restricted to those who are wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) under the supervision of someone who is trained in the appropriate use of PPE. Detailed guidance on care of the deceased should be followed, regardless of the setting in which personal care of the deceased is provided.

Given the very significant risk for clinically vulnerable and clinically extremely vulnerable people who come into contact with COVID-19, it is strongly advised that they have no contact with the body of the deceased, regardless of whether they are wearing PPE. This includes washing, preparing or dressing the body.

Experiencing grief or bereavement Whenever the loss of a friend or loved one happens, it can be an extremely difficult and challenging time. This may be even more difficult for those experiencing bereavement and grief during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bereaved people may struggle not just with the bereavement, but with the impact of social distancing measures and the fact that they may not be able to say goodbye in the way that they would have wanted. This may be particularly hard for those living alone, and it may be harder to connect with usual support networks.

Those who are bereaved are likely to feel waves of intense emotions as they come to terms with loss. These can include sadness, guilt, shock and anger. All are common and there is no right or wrong way to feel.

Grief affects everyone in different ways, but the important thing is to grieve and to have the right support to do this.

Learn more about grief and support available through the NHS, Cruse Bereavement Care which offers advice and support on dealing with bereavement and grief during the COVID-19 pandemic and ataloss.org which provides signposting and services across the UK. If you are supporting a bereaved child or young person the Childhood Bereavement Network has information and links to national and local organisations.

The Health Protection Regulations This document is guidance. The law is contained in the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) Regulations 2020 (referred to as ‘the Regulations’ in this document). For the position of what is lawful, you should refer specifically to the Regulations.

Communication while wearing PPE Compassionate communication can positively

Carry a photograph of yourself

Consider your tone of voice,

influence how parents and families experience their care even when the worst happens. Good communication builds trust between a health care professional and an individual, enabling parents and families to feel safe and confident

without a mask and share when appropriate, or display staff photographs in a public area.

ensure you can be heard, but be gentle, kind and honest.

Introduce yourself clearly,

Support understanding,

have your name badge visible and gesture to it as you make your introductions.

by using hand gestures.

in the care they are experiencing.

Warm facial expressions and a clear gentle voice are both qualities of compassionate communication, so PPE and particularly facemasks are a barrier to building a trusting relationship with parents and families. Parents and professionals have told us about the difficulties caused. Good communication can’t take away the pain parents and families feel but it can reduce the impact of trauma, both in the short and long term.

Take your time, Acknowledge the difficulties, explain why you can’t shake hands or make physical contact and that the situation is difficult.

Say things in a different way, if you have not been understood.

Use eye contact and smile, even if they can’t see your mouth, people will be able to see a smile in your eyes.

Think about the physical environment, face parents, try to stand still when speaking, try not to stand with light or a window behind you.

However, there are several things that health care professionals can do to maintain compassionate communication even when wearing PPE

“Once admitted to hospital all staff were in full PPE, care was second to none, but it did make difficult conversations hard as you could not see or speak to staff properly” Bereaved parent

don’t talk too fast, check back for understanding, use written prompts if necessary.

“The use of PPE i.e. fluid resistant masks made communication more difficult and there are challenges with not being able to offer the normal comforting of parents that we would” Professional

For more information on sensitive and effective communication visit sands.org.uk/sensitivecommunication Our helpline provides practical advice and emotional support to health care professionals, t: 0808 164 3332 e: helpline@sands.org.uk sands.org.uk

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AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

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Solitary Funerals and How The Pandemic Has Changed Grieving SARVESH TALREJA

Illustration: Reynold Mascarenhas

I lost my grandfather during Covid-19, and his funeral, attended by just a few close relatives, really brought home the meaning of the phrase, “grief is communal”.

It is only in the absence of community that I feel the need for more people to validate my own sadness, to stand testament to the life my grandfather led.

I am in a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey if Stanley Kubrick’s set designer were Sindhi and the spaceship was the living room of a South Bombay skyscraper. Around me are just about a handful of people, scattered about six feet away from each other, filling the place with their muffled tears, red eyes, and unusually fashionable Covid-19 masks. I know this levity is completely unwarranted – my grandfather has passed away and we have gathered for our final farewells to the man we all loved.

All around me, people try to deal with it in their own special ways. One is taking loud calls to navigate logistics, throwing sensitivity out of the window. One does a short but necessary yell at three new people who entered the minimal living room, making it unfit for 22

social-distancing guidelines. It is inappropriate because we are grieving, but wholly appropriate as the deceased man, my nana, had caught Covid-19, recovered, and came back home before passing away due to natural reasons. He now lies in a shroud the colour of the spotless plain white kurtas he wore at home. I am sitting, gobsmacked and teary-eyed, not too far from the spot where we would occasionally share a drink.

I have been to only two funerals in my life, both of them my grandfathers. I have no reference point from the earlier funeral except the familiar, deep sadness that has settled in my bones, and that the demise is unexpected.

“Death is still foreign enough that I find it does a discourtesy by not texting before calling”.

What’s really hitting me hard though, is the difference between the two deaths.

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A lonely funeral The house that my first grandfather had passed away in, ten years ago, was packed when I’d returned home from the market with funeral supplies. I had to shave my head on the apartment staircase outside, because there was no place for me to do so in the house. By contrast, this pandemic-hit funeral is like an orderly class assembly, except the kids are shaking from waves of sadness instead of cascading in-jokes. The funeral supplies are being taken care of by a company, although I brought the gangajal and sandalwood in a red cloth bag.

I am struck by the irony of the situation. That my grandfather, a builder who made spaces for the city’s richer people, has a generous but spartan living room that doesn’t have space for anyone except blood relatives. He was a man with a strong, assertive presence.

I think about the old photo from my parents’ wedding, where he looks like a mature Al Pacino from Scarface. His last days were spent shuttling between a hospital and at home, under a city-wide lockdown, not allowing enough people to experience his signature strong voice, those emphasised ends to sentences when he was sure he was right. The last time he held Saturday night court to an audience of tikka eaters and whisky drinkers had been in an era without masks.

“This wasn’t the farewell he deserved. This isn’t the farewell any of us deserve”.

Someone is reading from the Bhagavad Gita, while a bhajan plays endlessly on loop. The room is mostly people in fantastic clothes, their eyes glazed over like sugar donuts. Some eyes are red, others distant, lost in Memoryland like I’ve mostly been. It remains odd to make real eye contact, hold someone’s gaze, and feel empathy for the shared circumstance we are in.

Even in this small collective, the mourning and grief has been privatised, like watching Netflix alone. I cannot really tell how others are feeling by looking at their faces.

There should be more people here, so we can pay tribute to this man and acknowledge each other while we do it.

It is only in the absence of community that I feel the need for more people to validate my own sadness.

The final farewell When it is time for the antim sanskaar, we proceed toward the building lobby all masked up. Someone is using a phone camera to show my grandfather’s body to someone who could not be present for the final time.

The only respite from this singular dystopian world, is the chanting. At least there is some external manifestation of the shared experience that this man’s life was, that every human’s life is.

We drive through unusually nimble Mumbai traffic to a desolate, grey-ed out cremation ground. I am one of the kandhis, or people lending a shoulder to the pyre. This is the final destination, where my grandfather goes from a person to a body. The clouds are flexing, but there is no rain, except the fresh wave of tears from another person each time.

Maybe there is a dignity in this rare privacy. Few but significant people have made it to this funeral, unlike my other grandpa’s cremation which swelled into a small concert. It is kinder on the eye and the soul.

I wonder if tears kill covid, so I could at least see the people around me behind their masks. I want to remember their faces instead of the incomplete silhouette of their clothes and hair and reddened eyes. It would be cathartic to cry along with someone. To catch someone’s eye, to watch their lips shiver in simultaneous, shared misery.

It’s only now that I have understood the full impact and meaning of the phrase, “grief is communal”. It is only in the absence of community that I feel the need for more people to validate my own sadness, to stand testament to the life my grandfather led. As this article puts it, “Though a highly personal experience, grief also requires to be felt in the company of other grief. It is almost indescribable the way grief shifts in the moment it is expressed out loud. In that brief encounter, one’s grief becomes the world’s grief. Although pain-staking and lonely, grief is an invisible thread that connects all of our hearts.”

The quiet setting of his lit pyre is almost poetic, and it helps me process my own grief, as I break down completely for the first time in the day. My eyes are finally riverine, flowing after hours of being dammed by responsibilities. It is only now that I can mine my fondest memories with him. Those that are left of him anyway.

I go home and see the ties he left me, which I wear too little. I remember the last time I saw him, a shadow of the Al Pacino Scarface photo, a definite dilution of his tikka-and-whiskey-serving avatar. His last days weren’t kind to him, and that’s why he probably left. As the shrewd businessman in him would say, “Market bigad gaya hai.”

First published in Arré an Indian OTT platform based in Mumbai. It produces and publishes videos, audio series, web series, documentaries, text and doodles through its online channel this article has been reproduced with the kind permission of the author Sarvesh Talreja.

Sarvesh Talreja is a freelance writer based in Mumbai, India. He can be reached at talreja.sarvesh@gmail.com Editor’s Note: Market bigad gaya hai - If a machine or a vehicle breaks down, it stops working.

AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

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Readers will no doubt recall that the Deceased Management Advisory Group (DMAG) Interim Lessons Learned Report was published in the Summer edition of Resurgam.

The results of the consultation following the initial report has been collated and was published on 26 August 2020 a copy of the full report may be obtained by emailing info@dmag2020.org.

Deceased Management Advisory Group (DMAG) Interim Lessons Learned Report Feedback Introduction The pandemic has had a profound impact on the delivery of essential services across the UK, including those related to the management of the deceased. It was necessary to increase capacity as the number of excess deaths rose through the current emergency, whilst maintaining the care and dignity required of the sector.

The support of the UK government and devolved administrations has been essential, providing not only a regulatory framework to streamline funeral administration but also practical measures, such as PPE supplies through the LRF network. DMAG welcomes the initiatives taken by government and praises their willingness to work with the sector.

We are aware that there remain concerns both about a ‘second wave’ and localised ‘hot spots’ of the virus developing.

With these concerns in mind DMAG has carried out an interim review of the response by the death management sector to the pandemic. The purpose of this review was not to arrive at a definitive position on the success or otherwise of the measures implemented, as clearly that will be for any inquiry which takes place later. It was to learn lessons from our collective experience and apply them so the sector will be better placed to react to any increase in deaths during the short to medium term.

On that basis a report was produced and circulated across the sector, including all those taking part in the regular Cabinet Office consultations. We should like to thank all those who contributed, including individuals, companies, and government representatives. The initial report has been updated and is attached with revised outcomes which the seven sector trade organisations believe are essential to improving any future response to a renewed increase in death.

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Desired Outcomes 1. A recognition by central government and the devolved administrations that the Deceased Management sector successfully achieved all three of its objectives during the pandemic: • Mortuary capacity was not overwhelmed • an increased number of dignified funeral services were delivered • an increased number of dignified cremations and burials were delivered.

These were achieved largely through extending existing services, based on extensive experience managing seasonal excess deaths and previous flu outbreaks.

2. The Deceased Management sector has unparalleled experience of coping with excess deaths. Central government and the devolved administrations use this resource in a proactive manner to advise, shape and develop policy and guidance. The sector should be provided with the opportunity to comment on draft policy and/or guidance, to ensure it accurately reflects the desiresof government for the sector, that it is deliverable, and is sensitive to meeting the needs of the bereaved.

3. Building on the close working relationship central government and the devolved administrations have developed with DMAG, strengthen their single coordinating point of contact for all Deceased Management legislation, policy and guidance being produced across government.

4. Large scale emergencies invariably result in the involvement of a range of support organisations, each bringing their own skills and expertise to the situation. Whilst the support is welcomed, the Deceased Management sector had a clear understanding of the need and means for increasing capacity for disposing of the dead, and many of those adopting positions of the authority had not, resulting in confused messaging, creation of unwanted capacity, seeking and deploying Pandemic Multiagency Response Teams (PMART). A greater recognition of the expertise within the sector locally and improved coordination of LRFs in England and Wales by the lead government department, will ensure a more effective, proportionate, and consistent response to the demand for disposal.

5. Building on the close working relationship central government and the devolved administrations have developed with DMAG, recognise this grouping of sector representative bodies as a first point of contact.

6. In view of the success of the electronic/telephone registration and transmission of Disposal Certificates electronically, the General Register Office makes the current changes to the death registration process permanent.

7. In view of the success of video conferencing across the Deceased Management sector, funeral arranging, streaming services and meetings, its continuing and extended use is encouraged.

8. A UK-wide central cremation service availability portal is developed and its adoption encouraged.

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Interim Lessons Learned Paper - Consultation Responses Introduction DMAG published an Interim Lessons Learned Paper highlighting what they considered to be the most important lessons which could be drawn from the initial experience, ready for any subsequent wave.

Having published the Paper, it was shared with all the participants of the Cabinet Office meetings and they were asked to comment on its content. This paper sets out the results of that consultation.

It contains three sections: firstly, a summary of the key points raised; secondly, the key points as drawn from the submissions; and thirdly, copies of the submissions.

Government is unlikely to create a single department for death management. However, there should be a single point within government through which all proposals should pass to ensure consistency. The involvement of the sector at that stage will help ensure any proposals are fit for purpose.

• The streamlining of forms is welcomed and played a significant part in enabling the sector to cope with the excess deaths in a timely manner.

• Inconsistency has caused problems, from differing cemetery requirements, forms, to the engagement and effectiveness of the LRFs. • The response of the sector has been hindered by the continued lack of access to government modelling. If it is not to be forthcoming, the sector should be told.

Summary • The content of the Lessons Learned Paper is broadly recognised and welcomed.

• It was best to increase crematoria capacity incrementally; extending existing systems rather than trying to invent new ones.

• The sector will continue to be represented by the trade organisations, whose members represent the majority of funeral directors, cemeteries and crematoria, including the large groups.

• In addition, the large groups, funeral directing and crematoria, will seek to access government.

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Key Points The following are quotations from the submissions made in response to the Lessons Learned Paper: • Government unlikely to create a single department to lead on death management.

• Big groups will maintain close links with government and DMAG should have closer links with big chains.

• The crematorium capacity portal is inevitable and desirable; it should be created to meet needs of CMA. In the short term hotspots should be managed by exception.

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• I have read ‘Lessons Learned’ with interest and agree with the vast majority of its contents.

• Overall, the certification and disposal system has coped well over the last couple of months and on the whole, I would totally agree with all the Group’s findings.

• In particular, the registration and cremation certification changes have proved to be beneficial, although issues have arisen with PMART cremation certificates.

• The issue of burial is hardly mentioned in the findings. With restrictions on the number of burials that can be accommodated by a cemetery (sometimes only two a day), significant delays have occurred between death and the date of burial. This leads to issues over mortuary/storage capacity for funeral directors.

• The issue of length of time to make funeral arrangements.

Circumstances have arisen where no funeral instructions have been made by the NOK (Next of Kin), but the deceased remains in the coroner’s mortuary or with the funeral director.

• From all the issues we have had to contend with in recent months, the most fraught concerns the situation where arrangements are agreed with a cemetery/crematorium then changed due to restrictions being introduced. Little or no notice is given and it resulted in scenes of greater anger and frustration from clients.

• The content (Lessons Learned Interim Report) chimes with other feedback I have received, especially regarding the use of electronic forms and remote registration.

• Restrictions imposed by cemeteries are not consistent and often questionable.

• Better if Government had been frank from the start that they were unlikely ever to be able to share their modelling, leaving the NAFD (or whoever) to source their own insight.

• It is the huge diversity of approach that is bewildering to funeral directors. Ultimately, it is the funeral directors who have to explain and justify these changes to the bereaved, not the cemetery staff.

• Worked pan industry to develop a set of protocols to protect both the care homes from what we as funeral workers may take in as well as funeral workers themselves. However, this could and should havebeen in place much earlier.

• We believe the variable quality of the LRFs has been a huge issue and as a national organisation have been well placed to see the huge differences in engagement and effectiveness. The basic model of LRFs is sound but the implementation is patchy.

This needs to be resolved for the future.

• We aren’t convinced by the call for ‘the creation of a single government department to take the lead on death management’.

• Although some crematoria have struggled with capacity (‘hot spots’ as you have termed them) these have been helpfully addressed by extended service times.

• From the perspective of the funeral director it is vital to know what policies and changes crematoria have introduced in respect of service times, numbers attending, flowers on coffins, committal and music, etc. The idea of a portal for restrictions etc is excellent, but the key is keeping it up-to-date.

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• The MoJ have that responsibility already but they need greater influence equal to that of some of the other Government Departments • We believe there is work to be done for Government to have ongoing insight into the funeral sector workforce – its size, age, skills and location. The country owes a lot to the efforts of the funeral sector workforce, which has not been sufficiently recognised, in the way they have stepped up and the support they have provided to the bereaved, nor the human impact on these workers who have had to take on a greater burden on behalf of the family.

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•

The LRFs lack of coordination and direction was exacerbated by the fact that they were prepping for the worst-case scenario.

As such they were standing up large potential mortuary sites and deploying the PMART process very quickly and without consultation with the industry.

• In the early stages of the pandemic the issue of PPE – its correct usage and availability – took up too much bandwidth for many organisations, diverting man hours which could have been utilised elsewhere.

• DMAG should not be recognised by Government as the only consultative body for the sector going forward, if this precludes direct engagement with the largest providers in the sector.

• For second or subsequent waves of COVID 19 – we need early warning indicators as infection rates and deaths increase to enable rapid planning and action, ensuring we have the right resource and capacity in the right geographical areas. Scenario modelling should be shared on a confidential basis with the sector to ensure risks can be flagged and mitigation strategies rapidly developed. We would further urge that funeral sector workers are considered as ‘first responders’ and given this status, as it will be important when a vaccination is finally ready and available.

• This is a really useful document – thanks so much for sharing it with us! I’ll circulate it to our whole team.

• We made contact with the LRFs in which we operate towards the end of March, but beyond the acknowledgement of our communication, no contact has been received.

• We operate nine burial grounds: 3 in England, 3 in Wales and 3 in Scotland. The differing guidance and rules have been unhelpful and confusing to stakeholders and families.

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• Paper forms and cheques delivered to an unmanned office from COVID homes and funeral professionals also add to the risk of transmission of the virus. Online forms and BACS payments are the future.

• Registrars’ Green Forms - These statutory forms really should be online.

• A really good and thoughtful document.

• I wholeheartedly support conclusion No 7, but our experience in trying to encourage families and funeral directors to use the crematoria, which still had capacity, highlighted the difficulties in trying to implement it. For a number of reasons – local facility, previous funerals, reputational preference, etc, whilst people can still choose they will do just that, even if it means waiting.

• I was particularly interested to read that it was best to increase crematoria capacity incrementally; the point I make below about extending existing systems rather than trying to invent new ones.

• The creation of PMART: I believe these were intended to smooth the medical certification process, but in our experience did the complete opposite. Quite apart from the admin time this took to sort the problems out, it was also the sole reason for the only two cremations we had to postpone. I won’t go over all the issues PMART created, but a key one, which the report also mentions elsewhere, is that it is an example of ‘the wide number of government departments issuing communications and advice relating to the death management sector which was confusing.’ In PMART’s case it issued guidance which was contrary to the guidance issued by the MOJ to medical referees!

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What worked well?

• The crematoria and funeral directors successfully coped with the level of demand by extending existing systems rather than trying to invent new ones.

• Staff commitment/goodwill, continuing to come into work despite the known presence of Covid-19 in the early stages (when most Council staff were being told to stay at home), rallying around and working extra hours.

• Difficulties experienced in home working for more than a limited number of admin staff because the cremation application and administration process is still largely paper based. This is a national issue and was raised at the APSE seminar last week.

Lessons learned on ways of working • Chasing funeral directors for application forms sooner.

• Corporate support through seconded admin and chapel attendance staff.

• Webcasts provided free, minimising the administration process and taking the sting out of complaints.

• Cremators performed as predicted in the emergency plan.

• How might these lessons influence any future response, should it be necessary?

What were the challenges?

• Emergency volunteers are not a new idea but in recent years their refresher training has fallen by the wayside and new recruits have not been sought when existing volunteers have left. In future refresher training should be offered and volunteer staff released to attend it on a more regular ‘official’ basis.

•

Level of demand on the administration and the relentless funerals and cremations for the operational staff.

Fortunately, this did not go on for too many weeks.

• Level of demand for webcasts and problems with some of the webcasts themselves for reasons beyond our control, including supplier and internet issues, but causing complaints.

• Streamlining/computerisation of an online cremation application process.

• Neighbouring Crematorium deciding not to facilitate funerals.

This was the main cause of the extreme level of demand.

The responses in full are reproduced in the full version of the report.

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AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

Along with many government bodies around the world the New South Wales Government has updated their guidance on funerals to reflect infection rates

Funerals, memorial services and wakes - What has changed for funerals, memorial services and wakes held in NSW? The maximum number of people allowed at a funeral or memorial service is 100 people. This number must also take into account that there should be no more than one person per 4 square metres of space. Funerals at outdoor public places or place of residences are subject to the same limits The venue should also be registered as COVID Safe.

These rules also apply to gatherings held immediately after the service.

What if the venue is relatively small?

A funeral or memorial service must not have more than 100 people present and enough space to provide 4 square metres of space per person, whichever is the lesser.

How many people can I invite to a gathering after the funeral?

If you’re planning a gathering after a funeral, the gathering will have a limit of 100 people, and there must be at least 4 square metres of space per person.

Hospitality venues such as pubs, clubs, restaurants and cafés are permitted to accept a booking of up to 100 people for a gathering following a funeral provided there is 4 square metres of space per person. Venues must also be registered as COVID Safe.

For a gathering after a funeral in an outdoor public place or a residential premises the 20 person limit does not apply. The maximum number of people permitted is the lesser of one person per 4 square metres of space, or 100 people.

Separate safety precautions for serving food and drink and performances by choirs, singers and musicians also apply.

How do I know if my place of worship or funeral venue has been cleaned in a COVID-safe manner?

You should discuss the venue’s cleaning policy with the venue operator.

Under the NSW Health checklist, venues should ensure any areas frequented by staff or visitors are cleaned and disinfected at least daily.

Staff should frequently clean and disinfect shared surfaces. This includes door handles, lift buttons, handrails, seating, tables and sinks and staff rooms.

Staff should wear gloves when cleaning and wash hands thoroughly before and after with soap and water.

We want a guestbook at our loved one’s funeral.

Is that OK? If you would like a guest book, consider asking guests to bring their own pen, or have a plan to clean any shared pens as well as the area around the book.

If you would like one less concern at this difficult time, consider alternatives like a digital guestbook that can be filled in from home.

What about a funeral program or booklet?

Talk to the funeral director about alternatives to books, booklets, or other shared objects used during the service.

We also encourage online or electronic alternatives to any cash collections to be taken up in memory of the deceased.

Where can I find the conditions of entry to attend a funeral, memorial service or wake?

Places of worship and other venues should have a mechanism in place to ensure the clear display of the conditions of entry. These conditions should be available to the public on the organisation’s website and social media platforms.

Conditions should also be clearly displayed at all entrance points.

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Venues for funerals should also be registered as COVID Safe.

Any additional precautions for our service?

Many precautions are general measures that people have become familiar with, such as physical distancing, frequently washing or sanitising your hands and getting tested if you have any COVID-19 symptom, even a mild one.

Other precautions are more specific to slightly larger gatherings, such as funerals and memorial services.

If the funeral is being held in a church, for example, we suggest erecting protective barriers around frequently touched objects of worship such as shrines, relics or fonts.

Listen to any requests from your funeral venue or place of worship to reduce any crowding at the entrance or exit of the facility. This is important for everyone’s safety. You may be asked to enter or exit at a particular time to reduce crowding.

Find out more about precautions to take for performances by choirs, singers and musicians.

What if I want to pay my respects to a dear, old friend who has passed away but on the day of the funeral, I feel unwell?

This is a very difficult situation. We really urge anyone with even one of the COVID-19 symptoms, however mild, including sore throat, runny nose, cough, fever, muscle or joint pain, a change in taste or smell, or fatigue, to stay away from gatherings and get tested as soon as possible.

Funeral organisers are encouraged to consider live streaming the service or providing a video link for those who cannot attend due to illness or travel restrictions.

My mum has passed away and many of her friends are elderly. Is it OK for them to attend her funeral?

If you know of people who are at high risk of developing COVID-19 complications, such as elderly people or people with existing health conditions affecting their immunity, consider offering an online service. This allows everyone to pay their respects in a COVID safe way.

What if someone with a cough or other symptoms attends?

Individuals should take personal responsibility by staying away from funerals, memorial services and wakes, and getting tested if they have even the mildest symptoms, including sore throat, runny nose, cough, fever, muscle or joint pain, a change in taste or smell, or fatigue.

Personal responsibility is key to protecting ourselves, our loved ones and our communities against the spread of COVID-19.

You may want to designate someone to assist with this at the entrance as well as during and after the service or speak to the funeral director ahead of time about assisting with this type of situation.

A family member is flying in from overseas to attend the funeral. Is this permitted?

Australia has strict border measures in place and there are very limited flights available to and from Australia.

There are restrictions on people coming from overseas and a quarantine period of at least 14 days at the port of arrival in Australia is mandatory.

Where possible, for the safety of all, make arrangements for a video link to the service or postpone mourning activities until travel arrangements have been confirmed.

How will I know if a mourner or staff at the funeral venue tests positive?

People entering the premises to attend a funeral are required to provide their name and contact details to the occupier of the premises for contact tracing purposes.

Records must be kept for at least 4 weeks. Organisers must ensure records are used only for the purposes of tracing COVID-19 infections and are stored confidentially and securely.

If a guest or other person attending the funeral is diagnosed with COVID-19, NSW Health will ask that you provide this record to assist with contact tracing.

In addition, encourage guests to download the COVIDSafe app, which supports contact tracing while protecting personal information under the Commonwealth Privacy Act.

The risk of significant illness may be different for a 67-year-old person and a 37-year-old. However, no age group is immune from potentially severe outcomes from COVID-19 infection. Personal responsibility and common sense need to be front of mind to keep you, your loved ones and your community safe, especially at this difficult time.

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AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

Training and Examination Scheme for Crematorium Technicians

TEST Training Scheme Update Kate Waller – Training Manager I am pleased to advise that on-site practical assessments have been resumed, allowing those candidates who hold a Provisional Certificate, issued under the Covid 19 - Special Measures, to convert their Provisional Certificate to a full certificate on successful completion of their on-site assessment.

Please note that candidates and assessors, plus anyone within current social distancing measures, will be required to wear face coverings during the assessment to meet the requirements of The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings in a Relevant Place) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2020.

Managers should ensure that handwashing facilities with soap and water or hand sanitiser are available and offered to the assessor.

The manager of candidates holding a Provisional Certificate are currently being contacted, in the order the certificates were issued, to offer them the option for their candidate to proceed with their on site assessment immediately or to defer for one month, subject to this being within the six months of the on site assessments resuming.

Candidates who fail their on-site practical assessment will have six months to re-sit their practical assessment, however managers should note that the candidate’s Provisional Certificate validity will not be extended beyond six months from the date of issue. Re-sit fees of £350 per assessment will apply.

Due to the availability of the assessors there will be some regional variation in the provision of assessments and, where there is availability, some new candidates will be given a date for their on-site practical assessment once they have successfully passed their theory assessment, to avoid increasing the backlog of practical assessments.

If you have yet to hear from me to progress your candidate’s assessment please bear with me, we have the equivalent of a year’s practical assessments to catch up on, with more than 100 Provisional Certificates issued in just four months.

For candidates in Scotland there will be a longer wait as it is not yet possible top resume the Baby and Infant Training Module at present, however the Executive Committee are reviewing alternative options to progress this essential training for Scottish operatives.

As always, if you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact me by email training@fbca.org.uk or by telephone 01733 229646 / 07787 123331.

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PRESIDENT’S REPORT – AUGUST 2020 Alan José FICCM

The FBCA President presents the FBCA Certificate of Membership L/R Zoe McMillan, Alan Jose and Catherine Powell In my capacity as President of the FBCA, I had the privilege of visiting Charlton Park Crematorium, on Thursday 20 August, to present Pure Cremation and Charlton Park Crematorium with their Certificate of Full Membership of the Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities.

work looking after the different operational aspects of the business.

Pure Cremation was founded in 2015 by experienced funeral professionals who wanted to offer high quality direct cremations to families across England and Wales

I was welcomed by Catherine Powell Co-Founder of Pure Cremation and their Customer Experience Director and

by Zoe McMillan who is the site manager. I was given an extensive tour of the crematorium, including the chapel, and was most impressed with the very high standards of materials and workmanship that is evident throughout the building.

The site, which is set in the very pretty Hampshire Countryside near Andover, was particularly busy at the time of my visit with the installation of the third cremator in progress and when touring the impressive offices it was interesting to the well organised teams at 36

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who, as demand gathered pace realised that a crematorium would be a key pillar of their growth plan.

By 2017, having secured external investment of £7.35m, the group was ready to fund the construction of a state-of-the-art venue.

In April 2018, work began on the 10.5 acre site, a former plant nursery, and by December 2018 the envelope of the cremator hall was completed. Two DFW cremators were installed and the first unattended direct cremations were able to take place at Charlton Park Crematorium.

In May 2019 the entire Pure Cremation operation moved from its base in Newbury, creating the UK’s first fully integrated facility bringing together client care, customer support and cremation onto one site.

highest number of cremations in the last 20 years. So it’s no surprise that a third cremator is being installed already, allowing the dedicated team of technicians to handle the increased volume, within its usual shift patterns, avoiding the round the clock working that was necessary during the heights of the recent pandemic.

Decades of funeral experience contributed to the flow of the floorplan and design ideas from European venues add to its appeal and flexibility and in June 2019 the crematorium hosted its first traditional funeral service.

Since then the crematorium has swiftly become a valued community asset not only for ceremonies but as a popular destination for educational visits. The team’s passion for demystifying cremation has resulted in a virtual tour which is featured on the website – one of only two in the UK and the only one to show its cremator hall.

The 2382 cremations carried out at Charlton Park Crematorium in the first full year of operation, sets a new record, confirmed by the Cremation Society, for the AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

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2019 Cremation and Burial Communication and Education 2019

Planning for Burial and Cremation Space Lee Searles, BA, PGDip, MRTPI, Director of Planning, Enzygo Ltd

Session Chair : Professor Hilary J. Grainger OBE, BA(Hons), PhD, PFHEA, FRSA Chair – The Cremation Society of Great Britain Professor Grainger has been a member of the Cremation Society’s Council since 2008. She is Professor of Architectural History at University of the Arts London and an Honorary Professorship in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University. She works as an Institutional Reviewer for Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) England and Scotland and as an International Reviewer worldwide.

A specialist in late nineteenth and early twentieth century English domestic architecture, Hilary is the acknowledged authority on the architecture of British crematoria and on the late Victorian architect Sir Ernest George. She has published and lectured widely in Europe and America and her pioneering book, “Death Redesigned: British Crematoria, History, Architecture and Landscape”, received a joint commendation from the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals as an outstanding reference book published in 2006. Her widely acclaimed monograph “The Architecture of Sir Ernest George” was published in 2011.

She is co-author (with Honorary Vice-President Douglas Davies, fellow Council member Dr Peter Jupp, and former Council member, Stephen White) of “Cremation in Modern Scotland: History, Architecture and the Law” (published by Birlinn, 2017), which resulted from research funded by the Leverhulme Trust and hosted by the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University. Hilary is currently preparing a book “Designs on Death: The Architecture of Scottish Crematoria 1895-2018”. She is President of the Association for the Study of Death and Society (ASDS), National Chair of The Victorian Society and chairs 38

the Fabric Advisory Committee of Lichfield Cathedral.

She was appointed as Director of CAMEO (Crematoria Abatement of Mercury Emissions Organisation) in July 2019.

Professor Grainger was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s 2018 New Year’s Honours List for Services to Higher Education.

Text and photo reproduced with the kind permission of The Cremation Society of Great Britain.

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Session Chair : Professor Hilary J. Grainger OBE, BA(Hons), PhD, PFHEA, FRSA

hopefully I’ll tell through the work that we’ve done will give you some idea of the way in which the planning sector has approached, in terms of which planning for crematoria and burial space as I approach this topic and needs to approach it going forward.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the second day of conference.

It’s my great pleasure to be introducing the first two speakers of the day. The first of whom is Lee Searles who is Director of Planning for Enzygo Limited, a post that Lee has held for five years.

Lee began his career in planning with the London Planning Advisory Committee where he co-wrote its “Planning for Burial Space Strategy in London” and more recently drawing on the principles of that strategy, he has been involved in two research projects, two studies to inform burial and cremation space planning in England, one in Harborough and one in Northampton.

Indeed, the Harborough scheme was awarded the best local planning research scheme of 2018 by planning magazine and colleagues who are familiar with the history of our conferences will know that planning for cremations and the space for crematoria and burial space is a perennial issue which concerns many authorities and many private organisations. Particularly, prevalent after the second world war where space was at a premium, but I know it’s a very important current topic so we are delighted to welcome Lee who I think it eminently qualified to speak to us on the title of his paper – Planning for Burial and Cremation Space. Welcome.

Just few riders, I’m really going to talk about cemetery space and I’m going to use cemetery space as a general term I know there are lots of different definitions I could use for different kinds of cemetery provision and burial, ground provision and church yard provision and so on.

I’m really just going to talk about cemetery’s in the round, also I’m not going to say very much about crematoria. Our work mainly focused on cemetery’s and there are others that are a completely different set of considerations when thinking about crematoria’s. I will touch on it in relation to one of our case studies that we’ve done.

I’m essentially going to set out the kind of considerations and approaches that authorities needs to take when thinking about what they might need in cemetery space looking forward and then give you three case studies.

One from 20 years ago, two from more recently and I hope that will give some food for thought.

Planning for Burial and Cremation Space Lees Searles, BA, PGDip, MRTPI, Director of Planning, Enzygo Ltd. Thank you very much, the limit of my knowledge on cemetery’s is actually spanning 20 years, but with two years at the beginning and two years at the end with literally nothing in between. But I think the story that, AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

I think the first thing to say is local authorities have made strategic provision for cemetery land, but I think it many cases, it was a long, long time ago. I think our Victorian four fathers in to the early 1900’s made significant provision for burial and certainly when we were working in London, there was evidence that that had taken place.

The issue is that of course that had been made and then from a planning perspective and I think this is evidence by the coverage that many local plan give of the topic, it had kind of been forgotten, we kind of rested on our laurels, the capacity started to get used up.

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I think the other important point to make is that cemetery’s and the cemetery land in urban context in particular started to take on other roles and became useful as open spaces and recreational spaces, places of historical interest, places of wide adversity and equality quite apart from the core burial functions. Indeed, once provision was made and indeed expansion was often aligned adjacent to cemetery’s, over time in many local authorities, from a planning perspective that became forgotten and it became used for allotments it’s became used for open land, playing fields and other green infrastructure. Indeed, some local authorities would sell that land for housing and for other uses. So, the resources become used up, in many places, the land that was provided long time ago has taken on other roles and counts towards the provision for urban green space and open space and its therefore sometimes difficult to recover for that original use.

I think the rise in cremation to high levels to 70 or 75 %, you’ll know the more recent figures better than I will, has husbanded the resource and allowed it to last longer but there is from a burials perspective, a base level of requirement that we think will carry on to a long time in the future. And that’s based on deep held religious nomination preferences and other cultural reason which means there will always be an ongoing demand for burial space not least also the in turn of cremation ashes.

So, we have recently been involved with local authorities who have come across this issue, they have realised its capacity is nearing its completion and they’re looking at what they can do next. So, it’s about assessing what needs you need to make going forward.

I think we start from recognising what local plans and what local planners says about the collective provision of 40

their green space and their green infrastructure their open spaces and the roles that cemetery’s play in urban settings and we need to recognise that role, we also need to recognise the role, the social impacts, the lack of provision can have on individuals and on families and their loved ones nearby and they might have to go further afield. This was certainly the case in London and what gave rise to the issue in London 20 years ago where there was a collective realisation that space was in short supply and that people living in certainly the London boroughs were having to travel quite far out of London and then indeed pay a premium in terms of the cost for those burial space in those areas. It was seen as a social issue as well as one which is purely one of supply and demand.

At that time and in London there was a thought that integrated approaches to the management of cemetery’s was needed from the point of view recognising that complex role they play, that the often-historical interest, the ecology and the recreational side of it. At that time the idea of a reuse system of graves as a long-term option was muted and a brief debate which then sort of melted away. I think there are a number of approaches we need to take when looking at assessing needs and we really apply quite a similar approach you’d take to assessing the need for housing in many ways, the census information provides a base line of population and population growth and these are updated in between census’s by household projections and along side household projections we have mortality rates and we can apply these to both district wide levels but also to individual parishes or wards and we can also break it down in terms of the population structure by religious denomination. So, we can actually estimate the population of a particular district and sub parts of that district will grow and how the age cohorts will progress and how different religious denominations will grow or decline depending on how population will grow and of course into that is factored migration.

I think we can also look at how a local area where its putting forward its plans for growth to meet its housing needs, it may be setting out large strategic development areas, these will obviously have an impact on growth of the population of a particular place and then when can factor that in as well, into thinking about what population there is going to be in 20, 30, 40 years’ time and also matching that to the likely mortality rates and then death rates per annum in those places over the whole of that period. So we will then have, when we’ve done that, a kind of clearer picture of how the AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

population is going to develop, how the structure of that population is going to develop, what their religious nominations are going to be and then from that, what their likely preference is going to be in terms of internment is likely to be as well. And from that then we can get an idea of what kind of burial requirement we have.

We then need to look at what the current provision is and whenever we’ve done this, we have found that we’re really starting in a quiet, information poor environment. There is often cemetery team, a management team in local authority who have an innate and good knowledge of available capacity and potential expansion of their resources, but outside of that its an information and gathering exercise to examine what other resources are out there, whether its private provision whether its private provision, parish provision, church yard provision, there’s a need then to actually engage on a site by site basis to understand what that provision is, how much has been used, what’s available.

Often there is an element to management to that in terms of how the resource has been husbanded and how its being managed to fulfil the most it can provide, and then finally we need to think about how those assets that currently exist, can expand and is there potential for expansion where the demands actually going to be. So, there’s a clear kind of supply and demand element to looking at cemetery space requirements. One on the population side, one on the actual, what’s available. We need to look at how existing assets, how sensitive they are to change, how they potentially available for expansion and this is talking about either strategic expansion or in some cases the purchase of a little plot of land adjacent to a small village burial group. It can vary depending on the place and I think that we’ll show you in a minute, point to the different types of urban context in which we need to address this.

In summary, site surveys, desk based assessment and then also an important element of this is engagements with stakeholders so we can look at the data, we can carry out site based surveys to establish environmental constraints and the potential for expansion of cemetery’s but really we also need to go with the grain of the way in which the cemeteries are provided, managed, how burials take place in an area, and you can only do that through engagement with stakeholders, so this is about engaging with the parish councils if its a rural area engaging with the local authority and all its different departments, engaging with the funeral directors, AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

engage with adjacent authorities, trying to get a picture of how burials are managed in the area and where people are buried and what the practices are. So we will then have, when we’ve done that, a kind of clearer picture of how the population is going to develop, how the structure of that population is going to develop, what their religious nominations are going to be and then from that, what their likely preference is going to be in terms of internment is likely to be as well. And from that then we can get an idea of what kind of burial requirement we have.

We then need to look at what the current provision is and whenever we have done this, we have found that we’re really starting in a quiet, information poor environment. There is often cemetery team, a management team in local authority who have an innate and good knowledge of available capacity and potential expansion of their resources, but outside of that it’s an information and gathering exercise to examine what other resources are out there, whether its private provision whether its private provision, parish provision, church yard provision, there’s a need then to actually engage on a site by site basis to understand what that provision is, how much has been used, what’s available.

Often there is an element to management to that in terms of how the resource has been husbanded and how its being managed to fulfil the most it can provide, and then finally we need to think about how those assets that currently exist, can expand and is there potential for expansion where the demands actually going to be. So, there is a clear kind of supply and demand element to looking at cemetery space requirements. One on the population side, one on the actual, what is available. We need to look at how existing assets, how sensitive they are to change, how they potentially available for expansion and this is talking about either strategic expansion or in some cases the purchase of a little plot of land adjacent to a small village burial group. It can vary depending on the place and I think that we’ll show you in a minute, point to the different types of urban context in which we need to address this.

In summary, site surveys, desk based assessment and then also an important element of this is engagements with stakeholders so we can look at the data, we can carry out site based surveys to establish environmental constraints and the potential for expansion of cemetery’s but really we also need to go with the grain of the way in which the cemeteries are provided, managed, how burials take place in an area, and you can only do that through engagement with stakeholders, so this is about engaging with the parish councils if it’s a rural area engaging with the local authority and all its different departments, engaging with the funeral directors, engage with adjacent authorities, trying to get a picture of how burials are managed in the area and where people are buried and what the practices are, because its important when thinking about a planning strategy to go with that grain, with the way in which burials currently take place.

So having a clear idea of what the need is from a population and mortality perspective, a clear idea of what resources you’ve got in terms of available sites and 41

capacity and then a clear idea of the way it all operates from the engagement with stakeholders, you can start to develop a planning strategy. The base provision for any local authority is they need to make sure its plan is sound, from, in a planning term, it’s a sound plan, is a key thing which all local authorities need to do, and from that then, that means they need to make sure that they’ve considered all the appropriate options which they could possibly do which would demonstrate to stake holders, perhaps the private sector, perhaps others, communities who don’t want a cemetery near them or whatever it is. All the available and appropriate options have been considered properly.

That might mean that local authorities might consider making direct provision um, where they feel there is a need to make a strategic contribution to last for decades, then they may carry out sight searches and assessment to try and select candidate sites that perform best that would meet a future cemetery need, they carry out direct development themselves, they may design and provide a new cemetery, and apply for that through the planning system, or they may allocate land. Clearly and I’m not talking much about the private sector contribution but clearly there is a big private sector contribution and appropriate policies in land used plans can facilitate that development, which of course caters often for a wider range of real space options which is the choice which is at the heart of what we need to address as well but also does cater for a wider population than perhaps just the district in which its located which is a complicating factor in thinking about burial space requirements for a particular area.

So, overall they need to set positive policies which facilitate the development of cemetery’s where they are needed and I think that they generally are based on criteria based policies and normally limited by landscape sensitivities in the main by accessibility considerations and of course basic geological and ecological considerations. It might be that strategic sites for housing developments can play a role in meeting cemetery requirements and ill say more about that.

Section one of six requirements can be used to secure investment in cemeteries and then the other options is that local authorities can cooperate with their neighbours, not all local authorities are gonna have the necessary available space, um, given the tightest of some urban boundaries, to be able to meet their own needs and I think that’s a challenge that needs to be thought about in terms of the way areas work together in terms of their role, in land and urban areas.

I’m just going to give you some case studies and then I’ll make some conclusions. As you know, I was working for the London Advisory Committee in the 1990’s. It was when the Government said that we were going to abolish strategic planning, but in reality, we want strategic planning to continue and we must carry on doing this so we will have a committee that considers strategic planning. The Committee staff were employed to carry out research and coordinate activity in London.

It became quite successful at it and ended up being the Mayor of London’s planning team in the great London Authority when it was established but in the 1990’.

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We were then approached by the Institute of Burial and Cremation Administration, Federation of Burial Authorities, and the Corperation of London - one of the largest land owning cemetery providers in London, regarding the crisis in burial space, provision in London, who were concerned that many London boroughs had run out of burial space. Their concern was the social issue at the heart of this, a concern that overall, in London, there was less than 10 years supply of burials space. That was the sell. In response we thought that was an interesting thing to look at and put together a research project, which we worked with Halcrow Fox on at the time, with the Cemetery Research Group at University of York and a body called The Landscape Partnership, to look at the landscape aspects of this.

From this developed an approach which we’ve replicated recently for two further studies, basically using the methods I just outlined to you to provide a very detailed understanding of the population projections of London and factoring in all of the things which could affect it.

Looking at the population composition, looking at the religious denominations and their cultural preferences, and then looking at the provision of space in the capital and seeing that strategic provision had been made but it had been used up and or some of it had been lost to other uses and couldn’t get them back.

So, faced with that and faced with the historical significance of some of the cemeteries, particularly in London, obviously to become part of that open space fabric I was talking about earlier, it led pretty quickly to a consideration of well what do you do in those areas where there isn’t really space to provide new cemeteries?

You’re already at what you consider to be the plateau of cremation rates and there’s going to be an ongoing need, so how do you meet those needs?

This led pretty quickly to the consideration of whether you could have system of reusing graves and then to a thought about how you’d would provide a frame work for deciding, how and when and what you would do to do that. This in led to this idea of a cemetery management planning approach where you would, in effect, assess the value of cemeteries and different parts of cemeteries for their different roles. And then look at the places where the memorials have all been removed, people no longer knew who was buried there, no one had visited it for many, many years and could you, could reach a point where you could say that there would be a threshold after which you know subject to all of those AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

things, you could reuse that area disinter their remains, sensitively we inter them somewhere else.

I think the idea was that 75 years, was felt to be an appropriate threshold which was put forward as a potential idea in a London wise planning strategy. The Great London Authority took that on and I believe there is a sole limited legislative change that did allow some reuse in London and in the early 2000’s. There was a talk of national pilots with the new labour government but I think events overtook it, it became too difficult and faded away. There was a debate in parliament where this study was mentioned in 2012 but I have not seen anything related to it since, but you may know more.

I think from my point of view this is still a long-term option if its ever revisited. This is kind of ironic because the next case study won an award for being brave and innovative on a difficult subject and this one did too, 20 years apart. So, it just means the planning system saw the value, but then did nothing about it and then 20 years later saw it again and I wonder whether we’ll do anything about it this time.

So, we move on to the Harborough cemetery strategy, literally 20 years later. I have done nothing on cemeteries in the intervening time, one of the planning officers in Harborough, recognised there was a need to address this as they were reaching a point, through internal dialogue, which I think is very important, between the cemetery managers and planners, that there was an impending shortage in that district. Their main cemetery resources were running out, but they had a very complex pattern of parish provision where there’s a right to burial in the parish so people move away but they can still come back and be buried there. There was an ongoing requirement for burials, a clear kind of main cemetery resource, but there’s a lot of activity going on in the parishes in the villages.

The key components of Harborough strategy were the three things I mentioned earlier and they each require different things, partly because the parish provision is quite widespread and often small resources needing small scale investment to keep that capacity going to add to it. For this they developed a Section 106 contribution, a planning obligation when a developer promotes a development which allows the local authority to ask for a planning contribution through Section 106 Planning Legislation. This has to be relevant to the development that’s taking place which is often where many requests fall down, because there isn’t that evidence so it just feels like a unfair request and the request has to be reasonable.

Armed with the detailed information that we were able to give them on the supply situation on the requirement situation and on what was need to increase that supply in each and every one of their parish and local church yards, they were able to in effect, apply to each developer and say, well if you’re gonna get that small housing scheme in that village then we can ask you for “x” thousand pounds to contribute to provision of additional burial space on this small parish burial ground, and that’s been working for them.

So, from that they’ve managed to gather contributions purely into a central fund and use it as an investment program for that local church yard provision. For that to happen you need to have an up to date picture of what the situation is so our study of what we did in 2016-17 will erode over time so they need to keep on monitoring that and get in place the internal processes which keep abreast of what provisions they’ve got, where, in order to keep that affective.

They felt there was a need to do something about it and they had already started working towards this, which happily coincided with the development of an emerging local plan. Using the same methodology, population, looking at the available supply, engaging with the stakeholders and looking at where the planning strategy is going for the district allowed the outline of a strategy to try and meet their needs which will be focus here. We went beyond the end of the planned period, as they wanted to make a provision and approach that would last 20, 30, or even 40 years.

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The second strand was, many authorities these days in trying to meet what our large unmet housing needs are making, bolder and bolder strategic housing land allocations for large urban extensions, for new garden villages and all we are saying is in that process the potential to supply some burial space land should not be forgotten where its, where that’s needed in an area and in this area it was needed, these would be large settlements which already needed some additional burial land space and so there was an opportunity to allocate land at an early stage before master plans become to fixed, to allocate land for burial space. Clearly there is a separate issue about how its managed about how its actually provided, who pays for it and the ongoing management but it’s a potential option and developers actually probably wouldn’t mind providing a little bit of land, because providing a little bit of land is an easy thing for them to do when you’ve got um, you know 500, 1000 hectares at your disposal.

And then the third component, which I think most local authorities would consider, is where they’ve got a main cemetery resource which they see as providing a base provision that provides for everybody, is to provide a new main cemetery and for that, that’s what the Harborough were doing and we carried out a site assessment which try to select some candidate sites which would perform well based on what you would do for any normal development, has to be near where people need it to be, it has to be accessible, has to be unconstrained in terms of the geology, the flood risk and what have you. So that was Harborough.

Northampton was the final one, the one most recently worked on. This was a more limited study just to look at the supply and the demand as a more fluid local plan situation, so Northampton is different again. In London you’ve got a very large built up area with very little opportunity to provide resource, Harborough has one big market town and then a lot of small villages and then you’ve got Northampton which is a Borough Council which has a boundary at the extent of its urban area.

Here there’s no spare land within its boundary, other than land that’s already existing. They do have some land, which was provided for cemetery’s extensions to existing cemeteries, but much of it has become used for other purposes, so this becomes a community question, a social question, as to whether they reclaim it for the cemetery. You know the story, whether they continue to have the local allotments, whether that green space has taken on important bio-diversity roles? These are questions that they have to face.

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A load of evidence based studies have already been carried out, which have counted the open land, these sorts of sites as important parts of that open space fabric, it’s already in an evidence base, highlighting that it has an important open space function, so there are difficult planning questions which they have to address.

To add to that, they are carrying out a joint strategy with the adjacent district in Daventry and South of Northamptonshire to produce a joint core strategy, and they also have a very complex and diverse set of communities with different religious dominations and preferences in that area.

So, quite a complex set of considerations, remember that this is adding to the need to provide land for all the other things that they need to provide land for in the Northampton Borough area, with significant affects on land values where land has potential development value for housing and other commercial development. There was a particular cremation issue here as well, which they’d already, done work on, so we did not deal with that, relating to the capacity to handle sufficient number of funerals per day, the availability of facilities adjacent to it and then the administrative services run by the council which they needed to look at to make sure they were responsive enough to handle the needs of the different religious denominations in terms of the time they need to get to the funeral from the point of death.

I think in this area the solution is probably a difficult one, trying to meet what they can within their urban area, and any strategic provision is likely to have to be made in co-operation with the adjacent authorities They’re planning a joint urban planning strategy, based on Northampton as a main town, it has a tight boundary, all the other areas beyond it which rely on it economically and socially and interact with it and commute to it, need to perhaps play a part in that provision and of course that presents challenges in itself, cross boundary planning, cross boundary administration is not always easy. But that’s something they’ll probably have to look at.

So, just to draw some of all that together, I think cemetery planning in a local plan context does need to be undertaking strategically but clearly only periodically, most authorities only come alive to it when they’re getting close to running out. To be fair, where you have got well planned resources that are looking like they’ll last for a while and good monitoring of that resource, AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

there is no reason to keep changing the planning policies if they’re in place and the provision is made. So, it is likely to be a periodic activity, but it shouldn’t be forgotten. Strategy needs to be appropriate for the area, and you need to go, you’ll need a range of mechanisms to deal with planning strategies depending on the area it’s in.

Where planned growth is strategic in nature, with the allocation of large amounts of land, if its appropriate, there is clear opportunity to secure some land for burial space in that process. And then where there’s a finer management of resources and use of the mechanisms which I referred to earlier for example planning obligations, there’s a clear need to maintain the information base otherwise the capacity to demand things will decline. Finally, to return the more sophisticated management approaches to management or the resource and understanding what the resources would be needed if there was ever a long-term reuse of graves.

Well, that’s my perspective on three studies undertaken 20 years apart. I think these demonstrate that from a planning point of view we can do it, that it is possible to get a really good and detailed picture of what the requirements are and there are planning mechanisms available to make a difference in terms of future provision, but not many local authorities appear to be doing it unless they’re suddenly realising that they have a problem and I think the challenge is to perhaps make that more widely understood and get local authorities to more proactively address the planning of their cemeteries.

Thank you.

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Session Chair: Well thank you very much indeed Lee and not least for drawing our attention to what our clearly complex factors and overlapping factors and so clearly articulating the way in which you’ve navigated through those findings. So, I’m sure there’ll be a number of questions.

Churches Funeral Group Representative: Thank you for that, I just wondered if you or somebody with you, work on projections for increased burial and cremations as the baby boomers shuffle of this mortal coil. I think a perfect storm is coming in terms of provision, not just for burial places but what to do with cremated remains and, and even cremation provision for that great ‘bulge’ of humanity who went through sex, drugs and rock and roll, who will die quickly because it didn’t look after themselves well. Lovely, I’m probably part of that group.

Working with developers is interesting, my experiences in the post war era, with all the building of housing estate that we did, building houses for heroes, the public land was put into recreation areas and the very little space given for burials and cremations, even places of worship in those areas, and very few of them have cemetery space with them, is my only case in point.

How are we going to be able to push developers to dedicate space in the new housing areas for burial and crematorium facilities? Its all very well to say, you need to do this but often in comes in the quid pro quo with the 45

local authority, they’re charged with responsibility to provide the space and then pass them on to the developer and say give us a little bit back, it doesn’t always happen and it will only happen when they can make money out of it.

Lee Searles: To answer the first question yes, when we look at the projections forward based on the population, it takes in to account the age cohorts so it picks up the baby boomers, it picks up the age of in migrants and it then projects that forward in terms of the mortality rates and life expectancy so you get a year by year requirement.

You have to be quite sensitive with it because when you’ve got quite small communities and sub sections of the population you don’t want to literally say one of that 10 is going to die or anything like that. It literally does get down to that sort of level so you kind of aggravate the data but you can provide a pretty clear picture based on social and economic and other factors which then create a year by year requirement and from that you can catch the point at which a resource might run out and then a new provision is needed so it just helps local authorities to plan for when something needs to kick in.

In terms of the developer point, the very information you need in your pocket, if you’re going to have that negotiation is a local authority based population projection, with migration and growth plan, for a strategic location. Then when talking about all of the package of infrastructure upgrades that are going to be needed to support that new development, whether its highway schemes, whether its contribution to a new school year or whatever it is that forms part of that package, there’s no reason why, an area of burial land can’t be in it - but of course they’re not going to give it to you for nothing. As you said, so it is important to have that detailed understanding of your development in combination with what we need results in the requirement for this amount of extra space. Yes, you can say we’ve got a main cemetery resource which we can use at the district council, we’ve got this parish resource, but there’ll be a need for something else.

developer says well okay, it’s a thousand hectare developments, sorry 4 or 5 hectare development its gonna have 1500 houses on it, so we can set outside x amount of land for economic development and they quite happily do that, however they don’t actually make any provision for the infrastructure for that economic land, they don’t develop the economic land but it’s there.

Often that’s a concern with this, because if there are lots of service sites around and it doesn’t get developed, but there’s no reason why they couldn’t set aside burial land if the local authority concerned wanted to then invest in that land and provide the cemetery and what have you.

There’s a big issue about all these things when thinking about who is actually going to provide it and who’s going to manage it for a long term. One point since you asked the question, on church yards which, as a planner seems a bit crazy but its just the way it works I guess, is that, like a one way ticket of closing church yards, it’s a one way ticket, you never come back and you’ve got all this space around the churches and no one knows who is buried there, all the graves are removed, what seems to me you know, just with a common sense hat on that that’s got to be a resource for the future but of course, I won’t go there.

Audience Question: Who is going to ensure that local authorities and developers pick up this responsibility, be it through legislation in parliament or to make sure that the local authorities make it part of planning condition?

Otherwise there’s only going to be, planners who are awake with possibilities that might put it out there.

Lee Searles: Well, in the places where we’ve worked, the impetus for the action in all those three cases that we did was from the burial cemetery mangers in the local authorities, they’re the ones that raised the issue and then managed to somehow cut through to their planning colleagues who then raised it. Yes, we also, though bodies such as the Town Planning Institute can promote this from the other side as well to try, to try to make it more well known that burials etc should be part of the consideration, when you’ve got a local plan, that you have to prepare and the local plan is gonna cost, 2 to £400,000 of tax payers money to develop then you cover off all your core requirements first. Unfortunately a study in to burial space requirements is low on the list unless there’s a real problem, it just so happened in the places where we’ve done it and there’s been a real problem and they’ve recognised it.

The microphone is just coming.

Audience Question: Speaking as a member of the sex, drugs and rock and roll generation, and the mortal coil, Lee, I very much appreciated your illustrate examples but in Japan where I practice and in many crowded communities in America, cremation is alleviating much of this pressure.

We have talked to developers about this, the largest land promoters and they do say they’d be quite interested in making that contribution, because if you think about it some of the easiest things to agree on are when a 46

Do I infer from your presentation that this all presupposes full body burial in the indefinite future or how can cremation be brought into the picture here in the UK? AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

Lee Searles: The assumption that we have always made, established through the London study was always based on the maximisation of cremation but then with a base requirement amongst some sections of the community for ongoing burial and that’s the, so the supply and demand is what is based on that and then factoring in the need for then separate cremation obviously, space, and also for the different religious denomination requirements as they affect the use of plots and what have you.

So, it has always been based on a max, what we consider to be a maximised, maybe this will debate about what that maximum level is but, if its around 75% then at least roughly 25% for burials, whether it would be more or not would depend on population.

Audience Member: I am just interested in understanding the Section 106 you talked about, as provision of cemeteries within that, in my experience within local authorities, is that always seems a green space so there’s a park built, there’s a playground built and that’s where it all automatically goes to.

That is spread over 11 cemeteries, but its also spread over something like 120 parishes. Many parishes do absolutely nothing for their communities in terms of thinking that people who have grown up and lived in a village all of their lives, might actually want to be buried in the vicinity of it as apposed to having to travel 20 miles to the hub cemetery if you like. So, I just wondered whether you thought, bearing in mind that your presentation addressed the higher level authority in terms of strategic thinking, it doesn’t have to be that strategic, it can be based upon relief systems and want, and I just wonder what you thought parish councils could do? They’re at their lower level, they’re the closest to voters and obviously closest to the people that are living in those areas, so what can parishes do, or should they do?

Lee Searles: In the Harborough, for example, as is the only area that was parished, speaking to each and every parish council and each and every church, with a church yard, they did have a clear understanding in the main of what their resource was and what they wanted to do to address it, and they did identify um, the actions that they’d need to take.

Lee Searles: The particular approach we developed with Harborough, which they’ve actually used, was in a context of a village provision and small parish burial grounds and some church yards and understanding from those bodies who are managing the resource, what they would like and what they would like and what they needed to keep the resource going. It would often relate to the availability to the small plot of land adjacent to the existing resource which they could buy or / and then the money they required to put in the pathways and the infrastructure to make that in to usable space, so with that in mind, armed with then the other side of it the demonstrable need, they’ve come up with a programme which is specific to each and every parish rather than a general kind of call, that goes in to a general pot and they’ve used that then to demand and successfully demand contributions from local housing developers who are developing schemes in that parish. Then they’ve used that money through a program of investment to make the improvements, but it does need that up to date, a demonstrable evidence base to underpin what your asking for or otherwise it just feels like an empty request and again it was in a space specific context of space next to, adjacent parishes, it wasn’t a general contribution to a green space or leisure.

They did take it seriously from the point of view of maintaining the ability for people to be buried in their parish because they did have that right to burial of people who had been born there and so it was seen as an ongoing thing that they needed to address. Until recently I was an elected Parish Councillor myself in Cirencester and there is an issue there where the district council runs the only district council cemetery in the whole district, which is in that town.

Audience Question: Just addressing the point about lack of supply, I take the view that lack of supply in local authorities is down to a lack of leadership essentially, I would expect people working in local authority, burial and cremation areas to be telling councillors where they are in terms of the supply and how much they’ve got left. That happened in Cheshire East and the demised authority before it, to a point where Cheshire East now has over a hundred years of supply, which is good.

You are right it is probably more about the future.

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There’s a question over its management and over its future capacity, and there are active discussions about taking on that responsibility because I think you’re right.

The issues around devolution of responsibilities has been on the agenda for a long, long time and neighbourhood planning and the move to often unitary status um, principle authorities where you have quite large council areas plus a lot more responsibility on individual towns, at town councils, parish councils to take up more responsibility at the local level. I think where that system has been in place longest, such as Wilshire, Cornwall, and Shropshire, they’ve got very good local to principle authority relationships where they do take on rounded more responsibility, not just on burials but all matter of things and I think there’s no reason why burials couldn’t play a part in that as well.

Cremation and Burial Communication and Education Event 2019 Principal Sponsor

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The Cremation Society Rooted in history: committed to the future

CREMATION SOCIETY UPDATE The Cremation Society have recently updated their website with new information and statistics. If you haven't visited the website recently head over and take a look at cremation.org.uk.

New on the site are the recently published cremation statistics for 2019 including: • • • • •

updated progress of cremation figures cremations by crematorium comparison figures fact and figures 1990-2019 international cremation statistics cremations since opening by county or regions of the British Islands

As with the FBCA there is also a section dedicated to COVID-19 including all the latest Government guidance updates and DMAG news, however The Cremation Society also produce a full list of COVID-19 documents from the start of the pandemic (as listed in the Summer edition of Resurgam) which is updated on a day to day basis with links to all of the relevant documents including the latest updates.

For more information contact: The Cremation Society Brecon House (1st Floor), 16/16a Albion Place, Maidstone, Kent ME14 5DZ. Telephone: (01622) 688292/3 Email: info@cremation.org.uk

Editor’s Note: Special thanks go to The Cremation Society, especially Wendy Buchan, for the use of their interactive list which has proved an invaluable resource, especially during the faster moving stages of the pandemic.

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AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

Burial and Cremation The Environmental Questions Brendan Day – Secretary and Executive Officer

The most profound changes to the disposal of the dead for over a millennium took place in the second half of the 19th century. Its figurehead, Dr Price, is recognised ‘as one of the most significant figures of 19th-century Wales, and one of the most unusual in Victorian Britain’1.

The greatest environmental issue facing Victorian society was the appalling sanitary conditions of the growing towns and cities, including the disposal of the dead.

The industrial revolution had resulted in the rapid and exponential growth of existing towns and cities as people were drawn from the rural environment to take the new better paid factory jobs. However, the existing churchyards could not cope with the rapid increase in the number of interments from the growing population and as a result ‘British burial grounds had become a site of national crisis’2.

Several parliamentary commissions reviewed the situation, and the Burial Acts followed in the 1860’s enabling the formation of local ‘Burial Boards’ to open modern cemeteries to supplement and ultimately replace the traditional churchyards.

In addition, with their slogan ‘save the land for the living’ the Cremation Society was formed in 1874 to campaign for cremation as a hygienic alternative to burial. When Dr William Price attempted to cremate the body of his AUTUMN RESURGAM VOLUME 63 / ISSUE 3

son, the resulting trial at Cardiff in February 1884 found that cremation was lawful providing no nuisance was caused in the process to others.

This was the opportunity the Cremation Society required to establish itself as the ‘pioneer of cremation in Great Britain’, building and operating the very first crematorium for public use, in 1885 in Woking, Surrey.’3 By the time of the introduction of the first Cremation Act in 1902 the revolutionary shift from churchyards to local authority cemeteries and crematoria was well under away and 100 years later in 2002 71.9%4 of the dead would be cremated.

The necessary change had been achieved despite significant opposition from a number of stakeholders through adapting existing practices, taking the limited churchyard model and developing it into a network of municipal cemeteries, and adopting the new disruptive technology of cremation.

British burial grounds are no longer the national crisis they were. However, like the rest of society, they and crematoria face a new challenge, a crisis which also demands vision, change and if necessary, the adoption of disruptive technologies. That crises is the climate crisis; namely the impact cemeteries and crematoria have on the environment, their contribution to climate change and ultimately how they can form part of the solution.

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Burial or Cremation?

Environmentally and ecologically, neither of these options are sustainable in the long term5 Cemeteries and crematoria – the challenge Federation members, as owners of crematoria and cemeteries across the UK, are the stewards of thousands of acres of land. Much of it mature green landscapes situated within urban conurbations providing potentially valuable ecological habitats.

For over 150 years they have been managed in a manner which has brought continuing benefits to the bereaved.

Transforming the delivery of a vital service through the introduction of new technologies, processes, and practices to raise standards, modernise service delivery and provide efficiencies.

However, in recent years we have become increasingly aware of the unintended consequences of some of these policies and the negative impacts they are having on the environment, as illustrated by the following examples: Cremation Cremation is the dominant means of disposal in the UK with 472,302 cremations taking place in 20196. The introduction of this means of disposal has delivered exactly what the early members of the Cremation Society called for, it has ‘saved the land for the living’.

Unquestionably it has prevented 1,000s of acres across the UK from having to be turned over to cemetery development. In addition, we have seen the technology advance from rudimentary cremators fuelled by coke emitting smoke to advanced computer operated machines operating on gas and controlled in a manner to reduce harmful emissions.

However, we are now aware of the damage caused by using fossil fuels producing CO2 and the need to reduce/prevent the generation of this greenhouse gas.

CO2 being produced by the cremation process cannot be overlooked and needs to be reduced.

There are potential solutions available, from adapting the current process to use different fuels such as hydrogen or electricity to possibly new technologies including Alkaline Hydrolysis, Cryomation and composting.

Coffin construction In the 19th century many people were buried in wool or linen shrouds or coffins of rough sawn timber, unable to afford the solid oak, varnished coffin replete with brass handles and hand made by individual funeral directors.

The growth of the centralised coffin construction industry has seen the development and introduction of coffins made from chipboard with a wide variety of veneers. These developments have made coffins available to everyone and their excellent finish makes it difficult to tell them apart from their much more 50

expensive solid wood counterparts. Furthermore, in using chipboard they are using a by-product of the timber/forestry industry which would otherwise go to waste.

However, we are now starting to recognise issues associated with the use of chipboard and the problems cause by the binding agent used in its construction, Formaldehyde.

‘The CDS Group environmental services undertake groundwater testing and pollutant risk modelling of cemeteries pre and post development in accordance with EA regulations. Formaldehyde is appearing in groundwater samples downstream of cemeteries.

This is likely to be coming from two sources: firstly embalming, but also from resin composition used in chipboard coffins.

‘Formaldehyde is highly toxic, a class 1 carcinogen, harmful and persistent to aquatic wildlife and can cause genetic defects. The permissible limit of formaldehyde in groundwater is zero!

In a one acre cemetery we deposit up to 198kg of formaldehyde from embalming, this does not include the formaldehyde in chipboard coffins.?? and in the cremation process it contributes to the production of NOX, an extremely polluting greenhouse gas.’7 There are possible solutions which include adapting the current chipboard construction process to remove formaldehyde and replace it with a different bonding agent. Alternatively, more radical solutions could include the wider use of greener materials for coffins such as wicker, enviboard or a return to wooden coffins made from trees grown in the UK. The use of formaldehyde in embalming should be replaced with a rapidly biodegrading substitute, or simply not used.

Memorials Prior to the 19th century churchyard memorials were predominantly wooden crosses with only the wealthiest being able to afford an actual ‘head stone’. The Victorian municipal cemeteries witnessed the proliferation of stone memorials, local quarries producing slate, natural stone and granites all being used by local memorial masons. Stone memorials became available to everyone, even in crematoria where the desire of the bereaved to mark a final resting place could be catered for.

To meet this demand the memorial wholesalers now source their stone, predominantly granite, from sources thousands of miles away from the UK including China and India. The shipping of this material produces significant amounts of CO2 pollution. Furthermore, quarrying is damaging to the environment and the resulting highly polished granite memorials support little if any biodiversity, unlike natural stones which encourage lichens.

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Again, there are solutions, a return to the use of locally quarried stone. Alternatively, more drastic solutions could be adopted, replacing stone with modern materials or traditional ones such as wood – carved oak memorials or recyclable metal plaques. One of the largest sources of stone in the UK is of course existing cemeteries, whose management includes the disposal and destruction of vast numbers of granite memorials, which could be refurbished and reused.

Grounds Maintenance In both cemeteries and crematoria, high standards of maintenance, including formal grounds mimicking the civic style perfected by council Parks Departments up and down the land, became the norm in the late 19th and 20th centuries. However, this model is extremely labour intensive, produces large quantities of carbon and positively discourages biodiversity.

‘It was 1961 and I was a horticultural trainee. Grounds maintenance was in the midst of a revolution; cheap herbicides and rotary mowers meant that we could dismiss the scythers at Shrewsbury Cemetery and tidy up the Victorian section.

It took a mere couple of years to destroy the wildflowers, together with the voles, butterflies and then the barn owl. This tidiness mantra was happening all over the UK and we have yet to recover from the impact’.8 The solution is for cemetery and crematorium grounds to include a range of landscapes including formal grounds, maintained using electric rather than petrol/diesel fuelled mowers, along with areas which will ‘welcome wildlife’ and support biodiversity.

These are examples of challenges which are currently facing Federation members as the stewards of UK cemeteries and crematoria. Change, if it is going to take place, will need to be delivered in a sustainable manner, involving evolution not revolution - and taking the public and bereaved with them. Change will need to be in a manner which will support the green economy and release the ‘Green Capital’ held in areas such as UK forests and quarries which could support the changes necessary to deliver greener coffins and memorials.

Change Drivers Just as in the 19th century, for meaningful change to be achieved, the current stakeholder industries, Cremation/ Burial Authorities, funeral directors, memorial masons and coffin manufactures, will need to make significant changes to how they currently operate and their offer to the public. Whilst climate change and environmental issues are without doubt the agenda item, there are constraints to meaningful change, for example cost and business imperatives, natural inertia and knowing where to commence! So is change likely to happen?

1. Statutory changes Politicians are under ever increasing pressure from their constituents to legislate to limit harmful impacts on the environment. The start of this process can be traced back to the publication of ‘This Common Inheritance: Britain's Environmental Strategy: A Summary of The White Paper On The Environment’9. The resulting Environmental Protection Act 1990 regulated a wide range of services for the first time, including cremation. To control a range of harmful emissions, the sector was required to replace the old ‘Push Button Operated’ cremators with ones controlled by computers, attached to abatement plant and monitoring equipment of a complexity never seen before. It is extremely unlikely that without the legislative ‘nudge’, the sector would have gone this far.

There has been an increasing amount of legislation relating to the environment, the Climate Change Act 2008 and most recently legislation requiring the government to reduce the UK’s net emissions of greenhouse gases by 100% relative to 1990 levels by 205010.

The Committee on Climate Change reported in 2012 that ‘Local authorities are well placed to drive and influence emissions reductions in their wider areas through the services they deliver, their role as social landlords, trusted community leaders and major employers, and their regulatory and strategic functions.’11 Cheshire East’s cabinet held their first ‘virtual’ online meeting where members agreed the council’s first carbon neutral action plan.

‘The action plan focusses on the initial actions that Cheshire East Council will take to not only deliver the 2025 target, but also how the council will encourage all businesses, residents and organisations to reduce emissions.

Councillor Nick Mannion, Cheshire East Council cabinet member for environment and regeneration, said: “In May 2019, the council noted the UK declaration of a climate emergency and committed to being carbon neutral by 2025’12.

As the majority of crematoria are operated by local authorities, (63%13) it is likely increasing pressure will be brought to bear on the sector to satisfy both national and local political imperatives, in addition to the next driver – public opinion.

Public opinion It is apparent that public opinion is now more aware of environmental issues than ever. Phrases such as ‘climate change’ and ‘climate and nature emergency’ are part of everyday language, the public have to separate their waste for recycling and in watching weather forecasts we hear reports of the ‘hottest’, ‘wettest’ and ‘driest’ day/month/ year since records began.

There are three key drivers which are likely to make change inevitable, even if the sector chooses not to embrace the new agenda.

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The BBC series ‘Blue Planet II” hosted by David Attenborough is recognised as a defining moment in the shaping of public opinion and the environment. ‘Nearly nine in 10 people (88%) who saw that episode of BBC’s Blue Planet II about the effect of plastics on our oceans have changed their behaviour since. Sixty percent of us now choose a refillable water bottle and coffee cup more than we did, and Waitrose has seen an 800% increase in questions about plastics from customers.’14 The public are now actively seeking out green alternatives and where the public go, investment follows!

Investment Increasingly, investment in the cemetery and crematorium sectors, in common with most industries, is linked to the green agenda.

Conservation stands a better chance if there is a profit in it.

The greater the profit, the greater the good you will do.’19 In the funeral sector another new entrant Neo Cremation state that they provide ‘Direct cremations that focus on the essentials. We make it easy to arrange an unattended direct cremation for a fixed all-inclusive fee of £1,295. Choose our sustainable and eco-friendly alternative and make a lasting impact.’20 Facing the key green drivers of legislation, public opinion and investment linked to the environment, can burial and cremation authorities continue to act in a manner which is not in keeping with their role of stewards of the land and facilities they manage?

‘Sustainable investing takes into account the environmental, social and governmental challenges our world faces. For instance, this could relate to the overuse of natural resources, rising levels of pollution or the effects of increasing urbanization’.15

The overwhelming evidence suggests that the answer is no. Furthermore, we have known this for some years.

Legislatively, the Environmental Protection Act indicated the path of travel 30 years ago; operationally, pioneers including Ken West introduced the first woodland burial site in 199321; cardboard and wicker coffins were introduced decades ago as more environmentally friendly alternatives to chipboard coffins; and rather than have ashes at crematoria with a memorial 79%22 of families now take the cremated remains away to more meaningful locations.

Darwin Alternative Investments state that for their investments we ‘take into consideration their environmental impact and we focus on enhancing the natural landscape, protecting the ecology and building in a sustainable manner at every location.’16

In view of the recognised challenges facing the sector and the key drivers making change almost inevitable, how should the Federation, representing the owners and stewards of crematoria and cemeteries across the UK, respond?

UBS Wealth Management with $2.3 trillion invested worldwide defines sustainable investing as:

Within the sector the Crematorium and Memorial Group state ‘We recognise the impact of our operations on local surroundings and are committed to maintaining the quality of the environment in which we all live by operating in accordance with our environmental policy’.17 Westerleigh Group state that it ‘is committed to maintaining the highest levels of environmental protection across its crematoria and cemetery operations.

New crematoria must be designed to conserve energy, to prevent pollution and to limit the impact of the building and the eventual operations on the surrounding environment.’18

References 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

A new entrant to the market the Faunus Group state that 'The Faunus Group is a green initiative formulated by a collection of like minded professionals.

10

We specialise in producing environmentally beneficial, socially responsible projects and developing green industry.

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Formed as a vehicle for our first venture, The Woodland Burial Co, the group has developed into a sounding post and spring board for developing new and exciting green businesses and ventures.

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11

Wikipedia G A Walker Gatherings from Grave Yards published 1839 The Cremation Society website.

The Cremation Society Annual Statistics Cryomation webpage The Cremation Society Annual Statistics Cemetery Development Services LinkedIn post.

Ken West OBE The Ecologist, 14th January 2019 This Common Inheritance: Britain's Environmental Strategy: A Summary Of The White Paper On The Environment. HMSO 1990 Climate Change Act 2008 (2050 Target Amendment) Order 2019 How local authorities can reduce emissions and manage climate risks 2012 HMSO Cheshire East Media Hub 5th May 2020 The Cremation Society, Annual Directory of Crematoria The Waitrose & Partners Food & Drink Report 2018-19 UBS Wealth Management Website Darwin Alternative Investments website The Crematorium and Memorial Group website Westerleigh group website Faunus Group website Neo cremations website Ken West OBE The Ecologist, 14th January 2019 Cremation Society Statistics

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Notes of the Meeting of the Executive Committee Held on Tuesday 28th April 2020 (Held by video conference) Present: Cllr Isabel Mattick Dave Clay Cllr David Marren Steve Gant Stuart Connelly John Proffitt Mike Birkinshaw Ian Kearns Alan José Brendan Day Kate Waller Michael May -

Bracknell Town Council Calderdale Council Cheshire East Council CMG Dudley MBC Edinburgh Crematorium Ltd Redditch and Bromsgrove Council Scottish Sub Committee Westerleigh Group (President – Chair) Secretary and Executive Officer Resurgam Editor/Training Manager Treasurer

The President welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked them for attending, what was a first for the Federation, a video conference meeting made necessary by the social distancing measures required by the government.

Election of Officers for 2020/2021 The Secretary chaired the meeting to elect the officers for 2020/21. a)

President: It was proposed that the Deputy President, Cllr David Marren, should be elected as President for 2020/2021.

The motion was unanimously agreed.

b)

Deputy President: It was proposed that Michael Birkinshaw should be elected as Deputy President 2020/2021.

The motion was unanimously agreed.

1.

Apologies for absence were received from Cllr Ted Latham, Margam Crematorium.

2.

Declarations of Interest The President, Alan José, declared an interest in being a Director of the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management.

There were no other declarations of interest.

3.

Minutes of the NEC Meeting held on 12th December 2019 The minutes had been circulated by the Secretary prior to the meeting, these were approved by the meeting and signed by the Chairman.

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4.

Matters arising It was noted that a report under Item 7, ‘Decision making and constitutional review’, to be brought back to this meeting has had to be delayed due to the current circumstances. It was agreed that the report would be brought back to a future meeting of this committee.

It was also agreed that Item 13 ‘Dates of Future Meetings’ was no longer correct and may have to be amended further to take account of the current circumstances.

5.

Pandemic response A report had been circulated by the Secretary prior to the meeting, which the meeting welcomed. The President thanked the Secretary for his proactive response in keeping members informed and working with other organisations in the creation of Deceased Management Advisory Group (DMAG).

The Secretary highlighted several issues in his report including the difficulty in planning the sector response when no modelling had been issued by government. To provide comfort to government, working with the ICCM, two surveys had been undertaken which had demonstrated the sector had sufficient capacity. Furthermore, crematoria can provide shorter services, 7 days per week if required, but this had not been necessary. Confirming that, whilst funeral directors may not have resources to use available slots at crematoria, there is sufficient cremation capacity to meet the increase in death rate.

The need to work for seven days a week would have to be a local decision, based on a risk assessment to protect the health and wellbeing of the operators.

The development of the DMAG has proved extremely successful in bringing the major organisations representing the sector together.

Meeting each day and having government departments dialling in has provided a unique opportunity for the Federation to build relationships with key sector stakeholders.

The Crematorium Compliance Scheme inspections had to be temporarily suspended due to government restrictions on movement.

Due to the current restrictions it was unlikely that the Joint Conference would be able to proceed in June as planned. The conference organisers, Fuse, had agreed with the hotel a package for event to take place in June 2021 at the same rate and with no financial penalty. Providing the Cremation Society agreed it was felt that postponing the event would provide delegates, speakers, and exhibitors with certainty.

It was proposed that: The Joint Conference for 2020 be cancelled and that it be held in June 2021 at the Hilton Ageas Bowl Southampton.

The motion was unanimously agreed.

As it had been proposed to hold the Federation AGM during the Joint Conference it would now be necessary to make alternative arrangements. If the social distancing arrangements had not been relaxed it maybe necessary to use a larger room so that attendees could sit 2m apart or alternatively it maybe necessary to hold a video conference.

It was proposed that: The Secretary and Treasurer make the necessary arrangements, to hold the AGM in October, either online or physically depending on any restrictions in force and the requirements of the Constitution.

The motion was unanimously agreed.

6.

Resurgam Editor’s Report A report had been circulated by the Secretary prior to the meeting. The availability of the printer, who is restricted by the current lockdown requirements, will determine when the next issue of Resurgam can go to print.

The report was noted.

7.

Training Manager’s Report A report had been circulated by the Secretary prior to the meeting. The Training Manager added that since circulating the report a further two enrolments and three certificates had been issued.

The President welcomed the speed with which the scheme had been amended to reflect the current circumstances and the importance of being able to provide training during these difficult times.

It was noted from the report that the workload associated with the Training Manager’s role had increased and should be reviewed.

It was suggested that this should be delegated to two members of the National Executive Committee.

It was proposed that: The post of Training Manager and associated honorarium be reviewed by the President, Deputy President, Secretary and Treasurer The motion was unanimously agreed.

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8.

Scottish Sub-Committee Report Due to the lock down restrictions the meeting scheduled for March had to be cancelled and this will be rescheduled when circumstances permit.

The FBCA had been represented on the Scottish Government Additional Deaths Oversight Group. It has been very useful to get the views from all the different sectors represented on the group and to be able to represent the views of Burial and Cremation Authorities. There had been a concern at the start of the pandemic that delays at crematoria could place additional pressure on mortuaries. However, the Federation representative was able to advise that the source of the delays was the Registration Service.

As a result, Registrars increased the availability of death registration to reduce the backlog.

The key issue remains ensuring there is sufficient mortuary capacity and where the situation had been critical the pressure had now reduced.

The Inspector of Crematoria has been extremely active, checking with individual sites, obtaining data on the number of cremations being carried out and the availability of service times. He has been extremely supportive of the sector.

9.

Accounts

10.

A copy of the audited accounts had been circulated prior to the meeting. The Treasurer took the those present through the detail of the accounts. The income and expenditure were much in line with the budget discussed by the committee at its December meeting.

There had been an increase in expenditure associated with the increased number of crematoria inspected during 2019. The accounts have received a clean report from the auditors and will be signed off following their adoption by the committee.

It was proposed that: The accounts be adopted.

The motion was unanimously agreed.

11.

Date of future meetings.

Provisional video meeting Tuesday 10am 30th June.

www.pjcsl.co.uk PJ Combustion Solutions Ltd Unit N, Churchill Industrial Estate Churchill Road, Leckhampton, Cheltenham GL53 7FD Tel: 01242 216949 E-mail: peterjames@pjcsl.co.uk

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THE FEDERATION OF BURIAL AND CREMATION AUTHORITIES Code of Cremation Practice 1. CONDUCT The cremation of a human body is a highly emotional occasion for those taking part in the service. This must never be forgotten by the staff of the Crematorium, who must combine to create and maintain a dignified atmosphere of reverence and respect throughout the entire proceedings.

2. STAFF The greatest care must be taken in the appointment of members of the Crematorium staff, any one of whom may, by conduct or demeanour, detract from the atmosphere of reverence which it is endeavoured to create. All staff employed in the operation of cremators must be suitably trained in the technical and ethical procedures and certified as specified in Process Guidance Note 5/2 (12) or any subsequent Guidance that may be issued by the relevant Government Department.

3. PRIOR TO COMMITTAL A coffin and its contents brought to the crematorium, whether for a service prior to cremation, a planned cremation without a service, or for a service prior to burial, shall be brought into the crematorium building through an appropriate* entrance. If the coffin and its contents are to be cremated, the coffin shall be transferred directly to the crematory in the normal manner. *Note: Where the crematorium offers more than one entrance for receiving the deceased, they must be designed for the required purpose and be suitable for the dignified reception of coffins. The entrance should be visible to the public, should be sufficiently wide enough for clear access, e.g. double doors, and where it enters the crematory directly, it should pass through two sets of double doors. The Cremation Authority must obtain the prior, informed, written consent of the Applicant for Cremation for the use of whichever entrance is required.

4. AFTER COMMITTAL (a) A body shall not be removed from the Crematorium after the Service of Committal except for a lawful purpose. (b) Subject to receiving the necessary Authority to Cremate, the coffin and its contents shall be put into the cremator, as soon as practicable, exactly as they have been received on the catafalque. A body not cremated on the same day as the coffin is received at the Crematorium may only be retained on the written consent of the Applicant for cremation and in circumstances deemed necessary by the Cremation Authority, including impacts on the environment. All bodies retained at the crematorium will be accommodated in secure and sanitary conditions within the building. (c) Once a coffin with its contents has been placed in the cremator, it shall not be touched or interfered with until the process of cremation is completed. On completion, the whole of the Cremated Remains/Ashes, which is all the material left in the cremator following cremation less any metals, shall be collected and shall be disposed of in accordance with the instruction received.

5. CORRECT IDENTITY (a) No coffin shall be accepted at any Crematorium unless it bears adequate particulars of the identity of the deceased person contained therein. If a coffin is encased, the cover and the coffin must bear adequate identity of the deceased person. (b) Every care must be taken to ensure correct identification throughout the whole proceedings from the moment the coffin is received onto the catafalque until the final disposal of the Cremated Remains/Ashes.

6. SEPARATELY CREMATED Each deceased person given to the care of the Cremation Authority shall be cremated separately. Exceptions may be made for instance in the case of mother and baby or twin children providing that the next of kin has made a specific request in this regard.

7. COFFIN COVERS When a re-useable cover is used to encase a coffin, signed authority must be given by the Applicant for the cremation authorising its use and consenting to its subsequent removal from the Crematorium.

8. METAL RESIDUES Any metal found amongst the Cremated Remains/Ashes shall be disposed of in accordance with the directions of the Cremation Authority or Higher Authority.

9. CREMATED REMAINS/ASHES The utmost care shall be taken to ensure that the Cremated Remains/Ashes, following their removal from the cremator, shall be kept separate and suitably identified. The Cremated Remains/Ashes shall be placed in a separate container awaiting final disposal. If the Cremated Remains/Ashes are to be disposed of in a Garden of Remembrance, this shall be conducted with reverence and respect.

Cremated Remains/Ashes to be conveyed by a carrier service should be placed in a suitably labelled robust container and dealt with according to recommendations laid down by the Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities.

10. CREMATORS AND ANCILLARY EQUIPMENT Cremators and all other ancillary equipment used in the Crematorium shall be kept in good repair and maintained in accordance with manufacturers’ recommendations, and the requirements of the current guidance Notes issued under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 or subsequent legislation.

11. STATUTORY REGULATIONS All cremations shall be carried out according to the provisions of the Cremations Acts and the Regulations made thereunder and any subsequent legislation.

Issued May 2019

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To advertise in Resurgam please contact: Kate Waller – Resurgam Editor Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities 9 Cornflower Avenue, Hampton Vale, Peterborough PE7 8PB Telephone: 01733 229646 Mobile: 07787 123331 Email: resurgam@fbca.org.uk

THE FEDERATION OF BURIAL AND CREMATION AUTHORITIES

WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU The Federation counts over 90% of British Cremation Authorities as Members.

We offer a telephone and written advice service to our members through our secretariat and team of Technical Officers.

The Federation is the only organisation in this country solely representing the interests of Burial & Cremation Authorities.

Our team of highly experienced Technical Officers can advise burial and cremation authorities on matters relating to cemetery and crematoria management.

The Federation provides the Examination and Certification scheme “TEST” for the training and qualification of Crematorium Technicians. We also provide on-site refresher training for previously certificated cremator technicians to ensure that their knowledge and skill levels are up to date.

We are suppliers of high quality on-site training for cemetery operatives using a specialist training company to cover all aspects of cemetery work.

The Federation, formed in 1924, has vast experience in offering its members technical advice on burial and cremation matters and represents the interests of its members at Government level.

The opinion of the Federation is regularly sought by Government Departments prior to the issuing of wider consultation relating to the burial & cremation sector.

The Code of Cremation Practice issued by the Federation is recognised in the UK and abroad as setting the industry standard for cremation practice.

The Federation jointly sponsors the annual Cremation and Burial Conference & Exhibition with the Cremation Society of Great Britain.

We publish the Federation’s own quarterly magazine “RESURGAM” which informs all Burial & Cremation Authorities of the latest developments within the service.

The Federation provides a dedicated website www.fbca.org.uk with information specifically for operators of cemeteries and crematoria, although full access to the site is only granted to representatives of member organisations.