Local Authority funded funeral

Under the Public Health (Control of Diseases) Act 1984, where a person dies within the district and nobody is making the funeral arrangements, the local authority will in certain circumstances arrange the funeral.

If the deceased person died in a hospital managed by a NHS Hospital Trust and no relatives can be traced or relatives are unable to afford the cost of the funeral themselves, then the bereavement officer of the hospital in which the person died should be contacted. If the next of kin receives certain government benefits then they may be entitled to a funeral payment from GOV.UK help with funeral costs (opens new window).

Unfortunately, no assistance is available from South Holland District Council if the funeral has already taken place or if someone has already taken responsibility for the funeral.

If the Council take responsibility for arranging the funeral, then we will have first claim on the estate and all money, articles, goods and personal effects. We will take control of such assets in order to recover the costs (including officer time) associated with such action, as far as possible. This is to protect the 'public purse'.

In cases where we have arranged somebody's funeral and there is no will, no known next of kin and there are funds remaining in the deceased person's estate following payment of the funeral expenses, the estate will be referred to the Treasury Solicitor, who then administers the estate of the deceased person and publishes such cases, including some of the details of the deceased person, on their website. All information that may be disclosed by the Council pursuant to a request made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in relation to a deceased person is available from the Treasury Solicitor's Bona Vacantia website (opens new window).

Please find below information regarding any deceased people for whom we have taken over the arrangements for burial.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 some details have been withheld under the following exemptions:

• Section 21 - Information accessible to applicant by other means
  Some of the details of the estate of those persons who have died have been passed onto the Treasury Solicitors' Department and can be accessed via the Treasury Solicitors' website or at the bona vacantia website. Requestors may also be able to obtain this information via the Registrar for Births and Deaths. This information is therefore also reasonably accessible to applicants by means other than a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
• Section 31(1)(a) - law enforcement (prevention and detection of crime)
  South Holland District Council will not disclose address details into the public domain where they relate to deceased's empty properties as the property is likely to be unoccupied and might still contain the deceased's personal papers and effects. The council does not believe it to be in the public interest to disclose information relating to empty properties prior to a full and thorough securing of the assets of the estate as undertaken by the solicitors.
• Section 40 (2) - Personal Information
  We do not provide full details of the last known address of the deceased on the basis that disclosing the address may affect living individuals who may be residing at the address where the deceased lived. We consider that these individuals would not expect personal data relating to their place of residence to be released to the public domain without their consent. To do so would breach the first data protection principle because the disclosure would be unfair.