Dignity

Saving your family all the stress?

4 June 2024
Fran Hall
2 Comments
Categories: Dignity, funeral plans, Safe Hands Funeral Plans

We have long held a wary opinion of pre-paid funeral plans here at the GFG. 

Over the years, we have published numerous blog posts warning people to be extremely careful and to do as much research as possible before committing to purchasing a funeral plan. 

It’s an absolutely huge market. A multi-billion-pound market. According to Mintel, pre-arranged funerals account for a quarter of the overall UK funeral market, with 1.64 million funeral plans currently in existence. Let’s be generous and suggest that the average price of those plans is £2,000* – multiply that up and we reach more than £3,000,000,000 of hard-earned money tied up in funeral plans.

(*The price of a pre-paid funeral plan starts at just over £3,000. According to the National Association of Funeral Plan Providers, 169,846 new plans were purchased last year.)

The situation has improved significantly from the Wild West that it used to be before July 2022, when the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) took on regulation of the funeral market. 

We wrote here about our relief when the FCA finally brought this multi-billion-pound market under scrutiny, giving the public the reassurance of knowing that planholders who have paid an authorised provider for a funeral plan will have the protection of access to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and / or the Financial Ombudsman Service.

However, since the advent of regulation, multiple funeral planning companies have gone bust as a direct result of failing to meet the required FCA standards, leaving hundreds of thousands of devastated people who thought they had done the right thing by taking out a funeral plan, but who suddenly found that they don’t have the cover they have paid for.

Currently, four former funeral plan providers are in liquidation (Not For Profit Funeral Plans, Ready4Retirement, Rest Assured and Unique Funeral Plans).

A further six firms are in administration (Empathy UK Prepaid Funeral Plans, One Life Funeral Planning Ltd, Pride Planning, Prosperous Life, Safe Hands Funeral Plans and Silver Clouds Later Life Planning). 

And alongside these failures, the Serious Fraud Office are conducting a criminal investigation into a suspected fraud at Safe Hands Funeral Plans.

Plan-holders at many of the companies refused authorisation have often found themselves between a rock and a hard place – the choice for these unsuspecting, innocent planholders was either ‘just wait in line for whatever money back will be left to give back to you when the company is finally wound up’, or ‘accept the offer of a discounted new funeral plan from a FCA authorised provider’. 

A glance through the various Administrators’ Progress Reports or Liquidators’ Statements of Receipts and Payments at Companies House is depressing reading, as the labyrinthine dealings of investments, intercompany loans and transfers, and offshoring of funds is revealed. Vast amounts of money are now being allocated against the costs of winding up these companies, with Administrators’ fees running into millions already. The money paid in good faith, often by people who can least afford to lose it – many, many millions of pounds – has gone.

Across the board, Administrators are noting there will likely be just a few pence in the pound available to refund plan holders – see Page 10 of this example where the Administrator states ‘it is envisaged that Planholders who did not opt in to a Dignity funeral plan will receive a partial refund from the Trust. At present it is estimated at less than 10p/£ .’

After discussions with Administrators  / Liquidators, Dignity stepped in to offer rescue plans for clients of six companies, who together had purchased around a hundred thousand funeral plans. The transactional arrangements between Dignity and the Administrators for ‘rescuing’ these plans are not in the public domain.

Unsurprisingly, many of the worried planholders who were offered the alternative of transferring over to a new plan with Dignity took it, but all is not well here either. 

We have heard from a number of bereaved families of planholders who transferred over to Dignity in the hope of receiving the funeral they had paid for in good faith.

When the planholders died and their next of kin called Dignity to activate the plans, these families were told that the plan only covered 40% of the required money for the specified funeral. They were advised that they would have to pay the remaining 60% in order to have the funeral described in the original plan. We are unable to verify this information, but it has come to us from a number of reliable sources.

We are also very aware that many people who purchased their funeral plans from the now defunct companies would have expected their local (non-Dignity) funeral director to be carrying out the funeral. Obviously, where a plan has now been transferred to a Dignity Rescue Plan, this is no longer possible unless the Rescue Plan is cancelled and a new plan taken out, however there are problems here too. 

Planholders (or their bereaved families) who opt to cancel their new Rescue Plan are told: ‘You have a right to cancel your plan any time after we have received the funds from your previous funeral plan provider, without giving us any reason and without having to pay any cancellation fee.‘

So far, so good. But note the caveat ‘any time after we have received the funds from your previous funeral plan provider’. No indication of when this might be. And it goes on:

‘The amount you will receive will be in line with the terms and conditions enclosed in your welcome pack from us. The refunded sum shall be capped at the amount of money received by us in relation to the plan from your previous provider and any subsequent payments made directly from you to us.’

So, in plain English, that means around a hundred thousand people, having paid out something in the region of £200 million for their future funerals (many would have nominated their preferred funeral director who they wanted to carry out the funeral) have been faced with the alternative of either:

  • having the funeral provided by Dignity, with a significant additional payment required, and a penalty for cancelling which may decimate the expected value of the refund,

or 

  • waiting for the final winding up of the company they paid their money to, and seeing what miniscule amount will be repaid to them, with no funeral provision available.

Truly Hobson’s Choice.

As we have said all along, if you are thinking of buying a pre-paid funeral plan, be very, very careful indeed. 

~

Below is the current list of pre-paid funeral plan companies who are not authorised by the FCA. 

If you hold a funeral plan with any of these companies (and hundreds of thousands of people do) – and if you are unsure in any way of how you stand, go to the FCA website to get contact details to check on the status of your plan.

Bristol Memorial Woodlands FP Limited

Did not apply for FCA authorisation

Plans transferred to Plan with Grace Ltd

Capital Life

Application for FCA authorisation withdrawn

Plans transferred to Dignity Funeral Plans Ltd

Darwen Funeral Services

Did not apply for FCA authorisation

Plans transferred to Crystal Cremations Ltd.

Empathy UK Funeral Plans Ltd (Empathy)

Application for FCA authorisation withdrawn

In administration

Planholders were invited to take up Dignity transfer offer or offered a partial refund.

Eternal Peace Funeral Plans Ltd (Eternal Peace)

Application for FCA authorisation refused

Refunds provided to all Planholders

Fox Milton & Co. Ltd (Trading as Unique Funeral Plans)

Did not apply for FCA authorisation

In liquidation. 

No refunds available.

Geo. Hanson & Sons (Hucknall) Ltd (Geo. Hanson)

Application for FCA authorisation withdrawn

Plans transferred to Golden Leaves Limited.

Iberian Funeral Plans (based in Spain)

Did not apply for FCA authorisation

Planholders wishing to have a funeral in the UK have been contacted to provide a refund or offer other arrangements.

Mairi Urquhart & Son Ltd

Application for FCA authorisation withdrawn

Plans transferred to Crystal Cremations Limited

Maplebrook

Application for FCA authorisation withdrawn

Plans transferred to Golden Leaves Limited

Not for Profit Funeral Plans

Did not apply for FCA authorisation

In liquidation

One Life Funeral Planning Ltd.

Application for FCA authorisation refused

In administration

Planholders offered some discounted alternatives from other firms

Paul Young Funeral Director

Did not apply for FCA authorisation

Future of plans uncertain

Pride Planning

Application for FCA authorisation withdrawn

In administration

Planholders were invited to take up Dignity transfer offer or offered a partial refund.

Prosperous Life Limited (Prosperous Life)

Application for FCA authorisation withdrawn

In administration

Planholders were invited to take up Dignity transfer offer or offered a partial refund.

PS Cremations Funeral Planning Limited

Did not apply for FCA authorisation

Company still registered at Companies House

Ready4Retirement

Application for FCA authorisation withdrawn

In liquidation

Most plans transferred to Low Cost Funeral Ltd on same terms. Remaining Planholders offered new, discounted plans by Low Cost Funeral Ltd.

Rest Assured Funeral Plans Limited (Rest Assured)

Application for FCA authorisation withdrawn

In liquidation

Planholders were invited to take up Dignity transfer offer or offered a partial refund.

Safe Hands Funeral Plans Limited

In administration

Under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office

Planholders offered new discounted plans by Dignity Funerals and Co-op Funeralcare

Silver Clouds Later Life Planning

Application for FCA authorisation withdrawn

In administration

Planholders were invited to take up Dignity transfer offer or offered a partial refund

SJP Lichfield

Application for FCA authorisation withdrawn

Plans transferred to Golden Leaves Limited

Sovereign Lifecare Ltd

Did not apply for FCA authorisation

No information on plans

Tyde Group Limited

Did not apply for FCA authorisation

No information on plans

Wren & Fraser

Application for FCA authorisation withdrawn

No information on plans

ICYMI

5 January 2021
Fran Hall
3 Comments
Categories: CMA Market Investigation, Co-operative Funeralcare, Dignity, The future of funerals

 

It would be forgivable to have missed the muted announcement of the publication of the Competition and Markets Authority’s Funeral Markets Investigation Final Report. The culmination of a major review of the funeral market in the United Kingdom which began in June 2018, the Final Report is a weighty 497 page document, with 24 appendices – and a glossary for good measure.

The CMA’s findings were published on the 18th December, the day before the Prime Minister announced new Tier 4 ‘Stay at home’ restrictions on much of the country, effectively cancelling the promised Christmas gatherings for millions.

The strange festive period that followed, together with the continuing daily onslaught of bad news, the confusion and apprehension about the capacity for the NHS to cope with the rapidly rising numbers of Covid patients and the wrangling about schools opening or closing – the fast-changing pace of the strange new world we all find ourselves in means that the CMA’s final findings on the issues in the funeral sector have receded to what seems forever ago.

Most people, even those closely involved with funerals, won’t have found the time or the mental bandwidth to read every word in the report and other accompanying documents yet.

The enormous effort that Stephanie Canet and her team at the CMA have put in over the last 30 months, their scrupulous analysis of the existing landscape in the funeral sector, is in danger of being consigned to a shelf or a file on a computer, to be read at a later date. This is a mistake, and we would urge anyone with any interest in the funeral sector to at least take the time to read the Executive Summary (it’s only 10 pages) and familiarise themselves with the headlines at least.

The findings of the CMA are significant, and the issues identified in their Provisional Report (slightly shorter, at 472 pages!) are upheld in the Final Report. These are outlined below:

  • 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 impact of the Covid-19 pandemic during the latter stages of the investigation meant that the findings were necessarily impacted and affected, and the CMA team were unable to develop their proposals for remedies such as price control. This will likely have caused sighs of relief in boardrooms around the country, where the prospect of a cap on prices had been met with horror and strong pushback.

From the CMA’s Press Release about the report: ‘The Final Report sets out further detail on the CMA’s proposed remedies, which are intended to support customers when choosing a funeral director or crematorium, and to place the sector under greater public scrutiny.

They include:

  • an obligation for all funeral directors and crematorium operators to disclose prices in a manner that will help customers make more informed decisions
  • that information must be provided in advance of a customer committing to purchase a service so that people know the price they will be charged and the key terms of business – for example if a deposit is required
  • that customers should be made aware of any relevant business, financial and commercial interests of the funeral director, and that certain practices – such as payments which may incentivise hospitals, care homes or hospices to refer customers to a particular funeral director – will be prohibited
  • a recommendation to government to establish an independent inspection and registration regime to monitor the quality of funeral director services as a first step in the establishment of a broader regulatory regime for funeral services

The CMA continues to have serious concerns about the sector and one of the conclusions of the report is that it should consider whether a further market investigation reference is needed when conditions are more stable.’

Martin Coleman, CMA Panel Inquiry Chair, said:

“Organising a funeral is often very distressing and people can be especially vulnerable during this time. That’s why our remedies are designed to help people make choices that are right for them and ensure they can be confident that their loved one is in good hands.

The CMA will be keeping a close eye on this sector to make sure our remedies are properly implemented and help it to decide whether further action is necessary when circumstances return to a more steady state.”

We think that this is an eminently sensible reservation to make. The funeral sector will inevitably be changed by the impact of Covid-19, and we are already extremely concerned at a new development that has begun to take hold in recent months.

We are seeing tech companies stepping into what is perceived as a gap in the market, offering low-cost funerals organised online and by phone, and heavily promoting themselves with targeted Google Ads to appear as if they are a local funeral company to the viewer.

Most of these companies outsource the collection and care of the person who has died to funeral companies locally and often have absolutely no connection with – or interest in – the provision of quality support or care for bereaved people. The subcontracting bit frequently isn’t mentioned, or is buried under flowery language referring to ‘our partners’. If you look on the ‘About Us’ section of the website it is rare to find out anything about the people behind the business. 

Today we have been informed about one company that is advertising heavily and appears to have branches all over the country. On their website, the team in each location is shown as the same three people, which sets an alarm bell ringing loudly! Coverage from Tyneside to West Sussex with personal service from a team of three is quite something!

Concerned members of the Good Funeral Guild have looked into how this particular company is operating, and, after some detective work, it appears that they are registering as a virtual office, waiting until the Google pin is provided, then cancelling the virtual office subscription and continuing to use the pin in order to appear under searches as a local funeral provider.  Needless to say, the CMA have been informed about this.

Bereaved people, who are frequently, as Martin Coleman observes, especially vulnerable, could easily find themselves choosing a low cost company that appears to be local, thinking they have found a nearby funeral provider with a website, displaying prices online and that therefore they must be ok.  

This is a new and worrying development that the public need to be made aware of, a variation on the long standing lack of transparency that has plagued the funeral sector for decades. The new, faceless, tech based ‘disruptors’ bring nothing to the table other than devaluing the real, vocational work done by genuinely good funeral providers throughout the country, the ones who provide continuity of care, listening ears, impeccable care for the people in the mortuary and personal connection with the clients they serve.

The GFG strongly welcomes the CMA’s continuing involvement and oversight of the funeral sector. We believe this will be invaluable in monitoring the changing market and hopefully raising public awareness about the potential pitfalls of choosing a funeral provider online.

It is a sad fact of life that where there are vulnerable people and money to be made, there will always be those who will take advantage. Ongoing scrutiny of the funeral sector must continue, as the shape and face of predatory money makers styling themselves as ‘funeral directors’ evolves.

In the meantime, and possibly completely unconnected with the CMA’s investigations, there have been some high-level changes at some of the large corporate funeral companies over recent months.

At Dignity PLC, Chief Executive Mike McCollum left his role suddenly in April, taking a hefty £600,000 payoff with him.

His departure was followed by two independent Non-Executive directors, Jane Ashcroft and David Blackwood, who left the Dignity Board in April and June 2020.

In December (on the 18th actually, coincidentally the day the CMA published their Final Report) two further longstanding directors, Steve Whittern, Finance Director and Richard Portman, Corporate Services Director both left abruptly.

Dignity’s current, smaller Board of Directors appears to excel in strategy, finance and executive skills, but none of their bio’s make any mention of funerals. This seems odd, given that they proudly proclaim themselves as ‘The UK leader in funeral related services’ on their website.

Oh, and earlier in the year, Dignity’s Head of Insight, Simon Cox, quietly left his post in October. Regular readers of the blog may recall the bizarre juxtaposition of the Natural Death Centre Charity on Dignity’s stand at the National Funeral Exhibition in 2019, which apparently came about largely as a result of Simon’s efforts to revamp the reputation of the funeral behemoth by cosying up to a much admired and pioneering charity founded by the late, great Nicholas Albery. It caused significant consternation at the time – we wrote about it on the blog here.

Over at Co-operative Funeralcare, the longstanding Director of Funerals, David Collingwood, left abruptly (and apparently reluctantly) – again, on 18th December, the day that the CMA published its report. It seems that the powers-that-be at the big beasts in funeralworld felt that a shake-up at the top was needed, just at the very time that the CMA went public with their findings.

Perhaps the fact that both companies’ strong disagreement with the CMA’s provisional findings was not taken into account in the CMA’s Final Report meant that heads had to roll? See Dignity’s response here and Co-operative Funeralcare’s response here. Or maybe it was simply coincidence. Who knows.

There’s clearly a huge shift and change happening as Covid-19 gouges its scars on our collective consciousness. It’s inevitable that the way our society responds to the huge numbers of premature deaths will change the landscape of funerals forever, and the companies that provide funeral services will change their offering as a consequence.

It may be that the fact that the CMA’s investigation was interrupted by the pandemic will turn out to be beneficial to us all in the long run. The ongoing oversight promised by the CMA may help ensure that the future of funerals, whatever it turns out to be, will be a better one for all of us.

In the zone

6 September 2019
Fran Hall
2 Comments
Categories: Dignity, Funeralzone, Good Funeral Guide

 

We thought it was about time to share something with GFG blog readers.

It’s a story that’s been running for a while, but today seems like a really good day to put it in the public domain.

This week, we made a third party observation to the Intellectual Property Office about a pending trademark application.

We would have loved to lodge a formal opposition to the trademark application, but even with the 50p piece we just found down the back of a sofa at GFG Towers, we couldn’t cobble together the money required, so we’re relying on the IPO to read our letter and apply some common sense.

Intrigued?

Read on!

Back in 2008, a young, fresh faced Charles Cowling launched the GFG on the world. The website was a labour of love, and he put days and weeks and months of unpaid work into creating a wonderful information resource for people who needed to arrange a funeral. He also started the long running GFG Blog which now boasts over 3,000 posts and opinion pieces.

Funeralworld took notice, and the GFG rapidly acquired a following of all kinds of people, with many lively discussions ensuing in comments on various posts. The website grew in popularity too, with large numbers of people visiting it for advice and information about funerals.

The media liked us too. Charles became a regular on TV and in the papers. (We’ve tried to keep the momentum going – we are frequently approached for comment on coverage of funeral related subjects, and have been referenced and quoted in The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, Metro and other newspapers in recent years, along with interview coverage on BBC TV, ITV, RT, and multiple radio stations.)

Anyway, all seemed well with the world, so much so that in 2011, the Good Funeral Guide became the Good Funeral Guide CIC, a not for profit social enterprise company and was incorporated as such at Companies House. You can read our Community Interest Statement here from page 18 in the filing of ‘Incorporation’.

Our stated purpose is to ‘support, empower and represent the interests of dying and bereaved people living in the UK’, and we take this responsibility very seriously. If we see something that we think is wrong, or that is detrimental to the interests of dying or bereaved people, we say it. Loudly, and often.

This has gained us something of a reputation and brought us a lot of good friends who share our views, but also attracted less welcome attention in the form of occasional threats of legal action from the companies or organisations we have criticised. That’s kind of to be expected – speaking truth to power tends to annoy powerful players who have been called out for doing something we don’t think is ethical or right.

Sometimes we get approached by very nice representatives from the organisations concerned, offering us coffee or dinner or a chance to meet up and find out more about how their employers aren’t really the bad guys we portray them as.

These overtures are always flattering, but never accepted, which means we now have the reputation of being difficult and unfriendly among a certain cohort. (We’re not at all, as anyone who knows us can confirm, but we are passionate and protective about our independence; we hold it as a precious and rare thing in the arena in which we operate).

So, to cut a long story short, the GFG has jogged along since it became a CIC, just about staying afloat financially and maintaining an extraordinarily high listing on Google entirely because of the calibre of the traffic we get to our website. Unsurprisingly, we’ve never had the cash to spare for search engine optimisation, so our high visibility online is entirely due to you, dear reader!

The wonderful thing about being high up on Google is that our impartial and accurate advice is findable by everyone, and tens of thousands of people make use of it every year. We’d like to think that we’re helping to inform and empower people all over the country and as a consequence, enabling large numbers of people to get a better experience organising a funeral than they would otherwise have had.

It’s a responsibility that we take very seriously, and we are immensely proud of the GFG and all that it stands for – and I know I speak for all of the directors of the GFG, both former and current when I say this.

There is nothing like the Good Funeral Guide, it’s unique, and irreplaceable. It’s a jewel. It is wonderful, wonderful entity to be involved with because it has integrity running through its DNA. And in today’s world, this is a rare thing.

Free, expert information for anyone needing to make arrangements for a funeral is something that is very important indeed, we are sure you’ll agree.

And were there to be an attempt to diminish the standing and reach of the Good Funeral Guide, we’re equally sure that you’ll agree that this would be a very, very bad thing.

Well, it appears that something of just this kind of nature has been underway. Whether deliberate or not. It might just be a coincidence.

Cast your eyes over the chronology and see what you think.

  • Back in 2012, a company was incorporated at Companies House on behalf of two directors, Ed Gallois and Kevin Homeyard. Funeralzone operated an internet funeral director comparison site, and many funeral directors will be familiar with it. In fact, many funeral director websites still invite visitors to ‘Read our reviews on Funeralzone’.

 

  • Over time, a number of funeral directors and others invested in shares in the company. The latest list of shareholders can be found in the Confirmation Statement filed on 5thAugust at Companies House here.

 

  • Sometime between July 2017 and July 2018, Dignity PLC invests at least £666,000 in Funeral Zone Ltd. The investment could have been circa £1 million – on page 102 of Dignity’s 2017 Annual Report and Accounts, the following reference is made ‘During the period, the Group invested £1 million in a non-controlling interest in a business’.

 

  • 1 June 2018 the Competition and Markets Authority launches a market study into the funeral sector

 

  • Between August 2018 and December 2018, Dignity increases its investment in Funeral Zone by a further £5 million. Page 120 of Dignity’s 2018 Annual Report and Accounts states: “As a result of the last investment, the Group has a 23.8 per cent investment. Funeral Zone Limited is a UK online funeral resource for funeral directors and clients and has been invested in for its intellectual property opportunities. The Group holds less than 2 per cent of the voting rights of Funeral Zone Limited but is deemed to have significant influence principally due to holding a right to appoint a board member who would hold a 25 per cent representation on the Board of Directors and therefore has the power to participate in the financial and operating policy decisions. The Group also hold a call option over a further 44.4 per cent of shares.

 

  • At the end of the period, the Group held an investment of £nil million (2017: £1.0 million) in a non-controlling interest in a business. An additional investment of £0.5 million was made in August 2018 and the fair value was deemed to be cost. Following a further investment of £4.5 million in December 2018 it was concluded that the Group had significant influence over the investment and this has now been accounted for and reclassified as investments in associated undertakings”

 

  • By January 2019 therefore, Dignity had invested £6 million in Funeral Zone Ltd. This investment is in a company described on the same page of Dignity’s 2018 Annual Reports and Accounts as not making profit: “Funeral Zone Limited had revenue of £3,000 and a total loss for the period since acquisition of £177,000. The Group’s share of loss for the period therefore amounted to £42,000 which has not been shown on the face of the Group’s consolidated income statement.”

 

  • 29 November 2018 the Competition and Markets Authority publishes their Interim Report and consultation on whether to make a market investigation reference.

 

  • November 2018 Dignity initiates and funds a round table meeting at Westminster as referenced in the Chief Executive statement in the 2018 Annual Report and Accounts page 18 – ‘At the end of 2018 we initiated a round table discussion and invited the CMA and other representatives from the funeral sector, co-operating together to try and find a solution.’ This group will go on to name itselftheFuneral Service Consumer Standards Review.

 

  • 1 December 2018 a third director of Funeral Zone Ltd is appointed. Paul Webb, whose occupation is described as business consultant, joins Ed Gallois and Kevin Homeyard as a co-director. Mr. Webb’s LinkedIn account cites a current role as Business Development Executive at Funeral Homes Ltd, an ‘Acquisitive Funeral Business Group’, and, incorrectly, a second current role as Managing Director of Anderson Maguire Funeral Group Ltd (Companies House indicates Mr. Webb resigned from this position on 23rd November 2016).

 

  • 8 January 2019 a new company, ‘Funeral Arranger Limited’, was incorporated at Companies House. Ed Gallois is named as the sole shareholder and managing director.

 

  • 14 January 2019 a Change of Name notice was filed at Companies House. ‘Funeral Arranger Limited’ changes its name to ‘Funeral Guide’.

 

  • 14 January 2019 Funeral Zone Ltd applies to trademark the name ‘Funeral Guide’at the Intellectual Property Office.

 

  • 14 January 2019 the domain name funeralguide.co.uk changes hands. Formerly owned by Mark Brown and used to sell funeral plans, the new owner is Funeral Zone Ltd. (We wrote about Mr. Brown’s attempts to get his funeral plan flogging business off the ground in a blog post here back in 2017).

 

  • 28March 2019 the CMA announces a Market Investigation into the funeral sector.

 

  • 10April 2019 Funeral Zone Ltd applies to trademark the name ‘Arranger’at the IPO.

 

  • 16 April 2019 Funeral Zone Ltd applies to trademark the name ‘Memoria’ at the IPO.

 

  • 10April 2019 the IPO refuses the trademark application for the name ‘Funeral Guide’.

 

  • 14May 2019 Dignity warns of reduced profits.

 

  • 19 June 2019 First meeting of the Funeral Service Consumer Standards Review Steering Committee. Independently chaired, the committee is made up of ten representatives. Of these individuals, four have business connections with Dignity:
  • Andrew Judd – Dignity Director of Funeral Operations
  • Ed Gallois, Funeral Zone Ltd (23% Dignity owned)
  • James Daley – Fairer Finance (commissioned by Dignity to produce a 2018 report into funeral plans)
  • Jon Levett – National Association of Funeral Directors (funded by membership including 826 Dignity branches)

 

  • 24 June 2019 Funeral Zone Ltd applies to trademark a figurative version including the words ‘Funeral Guide’ with the IPO.

 

  • 28June 2019 ‘Arranger’is registered as a trademark belonging to Funeral Zone at the IPO.

 

  • 5 July 2019 the figurative ‘Funeral Guide’trademark application is published on the IPO website.

 

  • 16 July 2019 an independent funeral director who had been publicly critical of the investment by Dignity into Funeral Zone receives a letter of claim ‘pursuant to the pre-action protocol for defamation claims’ from Funeral Zone’s solicitors.

 

  • 17 July 2019 the Funeral Zone comparison site announces it has changed its name to ‘Funeral Guide’. All internet traffic to funeralzone.co.uk is now redirected to www.funeralguide.co.uk. All website content and social media profiles are changed to reflect the new name and branding. Sponsored facebook posts and twitter tweets appear to publicise this news.

 

  • 17 July 2019 new Dignity ‘pay per click’ advertisements are noted at the top of the results for the search terms ‘Funeral Guide’ or ‘Good Funeral Guide’.

 

  • 18 July 2019 a series of 10 free evenings of dinner and drinks for funeral directors is announced around the country showcasing Arranger software. Arranger software is owned by Funeral Zone Ltd.

 

  • 12 August 2019 an article appears in the Times claiming ‘Funeral Directors are to be given restaurant style ratings as the industry battles claims of over-charging and inconsistent standards.’

 

  • 13 August 2019 The FSCSR Secretariat sends an e-mail, purportedly to all those involved in the FSCSR, stating that the information in the Times was incorrect.

 

  • 15 August 2019 a funeral director posts a photo on Facebook announcing ‘Pearson funeral service does it again – 5 star award’. The image is of window stickers showing five gold stars and with the text ‘We have been rated by Funeral Guide, an independent review website’.

 

For context, back in October 2016, Dignity’s share price was £28.71.

It has fallen consistently since then, closing on Friday 30thAugust 2019 down 83% on that October price,  at £4.69

We also note Funeral Guide has amassed an ENORMOUS following on social media. 

At the time of writing, they boast 12,200 followers on Twitter and a massive 52,368 followers on Facebook. SO many people choosing to follow a funeral comparison site. (For comparison, the GFG Twitter account has 3,341 followers on Twitter, and 1,281 followers on Facebook.)

Oddly, and unlike the GFG followers, those following Funeral Guide on social media are almost completely passive and silent.

Funeral Guide’s posts are rarely commented on and occasionally liked by just a handful of individuals. But to the average person looking at the Funeral Guide profiles on social media, they look like an enormously important and influential organisation with thousands of people waiting for their next post.

 

 

We know what we think about all of these shenanigans.

Which is why we have lodged our observations about the attempt to trademark a name so very similar to ours by an organisation that now cites itself as the ‘UK’s definitive online funeral resource’ with the IPO.

We’ve also dropped a note to Companies House about the registration of a company name so like our own. And passed a lot of documentation to the Competition and Markets Authority.

But ultimately, that’s about all we can do.

If we happened to have had £6 million pounds appear on our balance sheets in the last year or so, that would cover a whole lot of expensive fancy lawyers were we to try to defend our position by taking a legal route.

But sadly, 50p won’t go very far at all.

All we have is a public platform to share our concerns.

 

Called to account

29 July 2019
Fran Hall
4 Comments
Categories: Co-op, Dignity, Funeral markets study, Funeral Partners
  In a blistering attack on the funeral industry in America this week, Michael Waters wrote in Washington Monthly:

‘The cost of death services has long exasperated Americans. In December 1856, a New York Times editorial argued that “nobody that is not comfortably off in this world’s goods can afford to die” because “to pass into the hands of the undertaker is positive bankruptcy.”

A century later, Bill Davidson noted in a 1951 Collier’s article that “while the cost of living has risen 347 percent in the last 122 years, the cost of dying has rocketed as much as 10,000 per cent.”

Not much appears to have changed in the intervening years since that 19th century New York Times piece, either in the USA or here in the UK. The high cost of funerals is a regular subject of newspaper columns and articles and the causes much debated.

The finger of blame is frequently pointed at the larger players in the funeral sector, while they, in turn justify their higher prices by claiming to provide better quality service. Indeed, a whole report emphasising quality and standards was commissioned by Dignity from Trajectory last year, making much of the fact that price was far less important than quality of service. And Dignity’s Corporate Profile publication (downloadable here) mentions the word ‘quality’ no less than 67 times, stating bravely “Our vision is to lead the funeral sector in terms of quality, standards and value-for-money.”

Hmmm. We’re not so sure that Dignity’s quality of service is justified by the prices they charge. Which appear to vary tremendously between branches, as noted in our blog post here.

Exceptionally high quality service is offered by all of the funeral directors on our recommended list, and not one of them charge the same amount for their services as the Dignity do for an equivalent funeral.

Fortunately, as noted in a series of GFG blog posts since first mentioning it last June, the Competition and Markets Authority are currently carrying out a Market Investigation into the funeral sector, and on Wednesday this week, the first working paper was published, outlining their approach to profitability and financial analysis. 

It is unlikely to be have been met with delight at Dignity PLC which evolved from SCI ownership through a management buyout in 2002. (Yes, that’s the same Service Corporation International mentioned so unfavourably in the Washington Monthly piece; the largest deathcare corporation in North America that, according to one study, charges prices that are 47 to 72% higher than other funeral homes and cemeteries.)

Nor at Co-operative Funeralcare and Funeral Partners Ltd – named alongside Dignity as the three largest providers of funeral services in the UK, and all being treated in the same way by the CMA (much to Funeral Partners’ annoyance, as can be seen in their response to the CMA’s Issues Statement here – ‘It is simply not meaningful to include Funeral Partners as the third of a group of supposed ‘large funeral directors’ and as such, it is submitted that there is no basis on which Funeral Partners should be subjected to any remedy which is not applied to the market as a whole.’)

Detailed financial information requests (going back five years and forecasting for a further year) have been sent to all three companies, with Dignity also receiving a similar detailed request with regard to their crematoria services.

From the CMA working paper –

Paragraph 25: ‘Our market-wide profitability assessment for funeral director services will focus on two groups of firms: 

(a) The three largest providers of funeral director services in the UK, namely Dignity Plc (Dignity), Co-operative Group Limited (Co-op) and Funeral Partners Limited (Funeral Partners). In the UK, these firms have an estimated combined market share of approximately 29%, based on number of deaths.

(b) A representative sample of branches in the remaining 71% of the market, which is composed of smaller providers.’

The CMA tell us at Paragraphs 29 – 30:

‘…we propose to collect data over a five-year historical period from 2014 to 2018, for both funeral director services and crematoria services (referred to as the “Relevant Period” in the rest of this working paper).

Where our profitability analysis is used to estimate detriment and therefore the proportionality of remedies, we propose to consider whether historical (or backward-looking) profitability is a good estimate of prospective (or forward- looking) profitability. We are therefore also collecting forecast information.

The largest providers of funeral director services and crematoria services told us that as part of the ordinary course of business they forecast detailed information for one financial year ahead. We are therefore collecting forecast data for 2019, giving us a total time period of 2014 to 2019.’

NB Paragraph 13 of the working paper advises: ‘The Market Investigation Guidelines (the Guidelines) state that: ‘Firms in a competitive market would generally earn no more than a ‘normal’ rate of profit – the minimum level of profits required to keep the factors of production in their current use in the long run, i.e. the rate of return on capital employed for a particular business activity would be equal to the opportunity cost of capital for that activity.’

The CMA’s sampling approach to gathering data from 100 small independent funeral companies is set out in paragraphs 86 – 10 of the paper, and takes quite a different format, acknowledging that these are ‘predominantly small (often family-run) businesses, which may not have full time accountants or bookkeepers.’

Now, we aren’t privy to figures from the Co-op or Funeral Partners, as this information is not in the public domain, but as a listed company, Dignity helpfully provides the public with updates on their success. Their annual report and accounts for 2018 can be downloaded here. And from the CMA’s own findings in their Final Report and decision on a market investigation reference:

‘6.112 It seems clear that the vulnerability of customers has been a major factor in enabling suppliers to charge high prices in the sector for the past 15 years, rather than underlying cost pressures, and it appears to us that Dignity’s pricing policies have acted as the engine of these price rises, with others in the market appearing to follow its lead.’

We’re looking forward to reading about the CMA’s findings when their forensic investigation into the figures is concluded and their Provisional Decision report is published early next year. Even with redacted numbers represented by pictures of scissors, it should be illuminating. Indeed, if we were inclined to a flutter at the bookies, we’d have a fiver on the largest providers not quite making the mark when it comes to only earning a ‘normal’ rate of profit.

The campaign is underway

26 June 2019
Fran Hall
No comments
Categories: Dignity, Funerals

This has popped up on social media by the main funeral directing trade association, the NAFD. (That’s the one that the big, powerful corporates all belong to, not the other one that represents independent funeral directors, for anyone unfamiliar with the world of funerals).

Well, well, well. It was only a matter of time.

There must have been a lot of meetings of important men in suits trying to work out what to do about a tricky problem, as outlined by Dignity CEO Mick McCollum back in early 2018. 

A report from CityWire warned, “Shares in the business are down 60% since early November, when boss Mike McCollum warned of increasing competition in the funeral space.

In this morning’s statement, Dignity said that over the last 18 months it had ‘consistently alerted the investment community as to the increasingly competitive environment in which it operates’.

‘Customers are increasingly price-conscious and in an over-supplied industry, are shopping around more,’ it said.“

Increasing competition. Like that’s a bad thing in a sector dominated by three huge companies built by buying up small independent businesses and industrialising what should never have been industrialised?

Oh, sorry, the increased competition means less market share for those men in suits and the shareholders that they serve.

And so here’s their solution. More of the smoke and mirrors, as so eloquently described by a GFG Blog reader here.

Dignity PLC, (whose management are so concerned about the state of the funeral industry that they and their spouses managed to offload millions of pounds of shares just before the value plummeted by half – see here) are the new nice guys in town.

They had a go last year and we didn’t pick it up – we don’t read the Daily Mail here at GFG Towers, but there was this swipe at ‘cowboy funeral directors’ s when they put out one of the expensive reports they publish every now and then to reassure their shareholders.

We did note that ‘The key message of Dignity being the saviour of standards in the funeral industry has been planted‘ in our blog post here last summer.

But we’ve been quite busy with other stuff, so we perhaps haven’t kept as close an eye on this Transformation Plan as we should have done.

“Ask us anything”, says Andrew Judd of Dignity, in his shirt sleeves, looking super friendly. If you really want to watch it, the YouTube link is here.

OK Andrew, here are a few questions, starting off with one we still don’t know the answer to:

Why do branches of Dignity funerals within just a few miles of each other charge such different prices for exactly the same services? (Refresh your memory here about how two different communities in London appear to be charged very differing prices by two Dignity branches trading under their original names.)

And for anyone struggling to know what questions might elicit really useful information from any funeral director, here are a few that you might want to ask before parting with your money:

Who owns this business? Is it still owned by the family whose name is over the door?

Who will be looking after us and assisting with the funeral arrangements? Will it be the same person throughout? Will they come to the ceremony with us?

Who will be looking after the person who has died? Can I meet them before engaging you?

Where will the person who has died be looked after? Can I have a look at the mortuary by appointment?

Can we come and help get our relative ready for the funeral? Can we wash and dress them ourselves? Will they stay here on these premises?

Can we come and visit them whenever we want? 

Can we look after them at home and just use your expertise for advice? How much would that cost?

Can we supply our own coffin? Is there an additional charge for this? If so, how much?

Can we arrange our own transport for the coffin? Is there a charge for this? If so, how much? And why?

Can we carry the coffin ourselves? Are the costs reduced if we don’t need your staff to carry the coffin at the funeral? If so, by how much? If not, why not?

Am sure we could think of more, but please add your thoughts in the comments – got to dash this morning.

 

Unlikely bedfellows

9 June 2019
Fran Hall
3 Comments
Categories: Dignity, Natural Death Centre

 

 

The GFG and the Natural Death Centre charity have long enjoyed an unofficial mutual admiration – nothing ever written down, but a kindred fellowship of ideas and ideals.

Founded in 1991 by the late Nicholas Albery and his wife Josefine Speyer, the charity was set up with three aims in mind:

  • To help break the taboo around dying and death, and to make it a natural topic to discuss over dinner.
  • To bring the dying person back to the centre of proceedings and enable them to die at home if they so wished.
  • To empower people and make them aware of their legal rights and choices, taking the power away from institutions.

The NDC inspired the whole of today’s movement towards individuals reclaiming dying and death as a natural part of life, encouraging people to take control of the end of life in much the same way as the natural childbirth movement encouraged women to reclaim birth as a natural process.

It encouraged Ken West OBE to begin the natural burial movement in 1993, and encouraged him and others “to be iconoclasts and attack the so-called traditions” according to Josefine.

It was the NDC that inspired Charles Cowling to start the Good Funeral Guide, and the NDC that encouraged the late Jon Underwood to found the Death Cafémovement in the UK.

The home funeral network and the death doula movement took inspiration and encouragement from the existence of the NDC, and countless families have used the Natural Death Handbook for guidance and support in caring for their dying and dead relatives.

It has had astounding success for a small charity, and all of us in the progressive funeral world owe the NDC a great deal. So to find the NDC sharing exhibition space with Dignity Funerals at this year’s National Funeral Exhibition was a surprise, to say the least.

To move from the robust stance against ‘juggernaut firms committed to feeding share-holders and venture capitalists at the expense of the customer’ as recorded in this 2012 NDC press release to the charity accepting an offer of free exhibiting space on Dignity’s stand at the biennial national trade exhibition seems to have been a huge change of tack.

The directors of the GFG felt compelled to outline their concerns at how this connection between the NDC and Dignity might be perceived. We couldn’t understand how it had come about, nor the reasoning behind it. We laid out our thoughts in an e-mail to the trustees of the charity last week, and then met with two of the trustees at the weekend.

From this meeting, our understanding is that the NDC is very approving of Dignity’s recently launched direct cremation service, as it provides the cheapest direct cremation service nationally.

It appears that they also feel they will be able to positively influence the decisions and strategic direction that Dignity takes through dialogue and discussion with the company, and therefore the charity has taken the decision to have ongoing talks with Dignity representatives.

Our misgivings are that the founding principles of the Natural Death Centre are in danger of being appropriated to enhance the reputation of Dignity PLC at a time when the company’s share price has slipped by over 70% and their main strategic objective is to ‘protect market share and reposition the Group for growth’ (see page 10 of Dignity’s most recent Annual Report).

We fear that the NDC charity’s history and good name are of great value to a company with 830 branches nationwide, and being seen to be in close connection to Dignity in any way, without any resulting, visible improvements in Dignity’s strategy and practice, is potentially perilous. We think that the charity’s hopes for positive influence on such a ‘juggernaut firm’ are optimistic.

However, we wish the Natural Death Centre the very best of luck in their aims. 

It’s a big task ahead.

Funeral prices

17 October 2018
Fran Hall
4 Comments
Categories: Arranging a funeral, Dignity, funeral cost, Transparency of ownership

Our recent blog post about Simplicity Cremations, the offshoot of Dignity Funerals, elicited this response from a disapproving reader:

‘This rattled me. “Dignity’s prices are too high and they are the cause of funeral poverty. Big bad dignity”. “Dignity lower their prices and offer a low cost cremation option. Big bad Dignity”.
Seems to me that someone has a bee in their bonnet and constantly looks for the negative.
Simplicity Cremations offers almost zero funeral director contact. The deceased is washed and dressed but that’s about it. A funeral director will arrange the Crem forms and dr’s fees but it stops there. There’s no face to face contact. Families arrange their own officiant, flowers, music and so on. The £600 odd pounds you’re quoting seems to only really cover the admin side of things, collecting and dressing the deceased, transport and a coffin. Seems fair enough.’

Hmm.

Let’s have a look at how the other arm of Dignity PLC (the owners of Simplicity Cremations) prices the services they offer clients.

Somehow, we don’t think that a figure of £600 odd pounds for the ‘admin side of things, collecting and dressing the deceased, transport and a coffin’  is considered ‘fair enough’ by the Dignity management when it comes to charging those families who prefer ‘face to face contact’. Or the bereaved people who do what most people in this country do, go into their local funeral director rather than going online to make arrangements.

Dignity Funerals Ltd is the company which, at the last count, has 831 high street branches (all trading under their original names) It is the company that conducted 39,700 funerals in the first six months of this year.  Or an estimated 12.1% of all the funerals carried out in Britain.

And apparently, Dignity’s methods of pricing their high-street-facilitated funerals are remarkably different from those used for their on-line business.

You will be faced with a bill of significantly more than ‘£600 odd pounds’ for ‘the admin side of things, collecting and dressing the deceased, transport and a coffin’ if you walk into one of their high-street branches.

That ‘face to face contact’ seems to bump up the prices by several thousand pounds.

We collected some current price lists from Dignity branches in the London area and the South East and North of England.

Here’s what we found.

The prices shown are for Dignity’s ‘Full Service Funeral’ – i.e. a funeral on a day and time that you choose (rather than them telling you when you can have it), with a choice of coffin and the option of having the person dressed in their own clothes (rather than a ‘suitable basic gown’), the option to spend time with them at the funeral home, assistance in organising floral tributes, obituaries, service stationery and donations, and the freedom to add limousines if you want.

Or, in other words, what most people would expect a funeral director to offer.

 London  South East England  North England
‘Our Service to You’* £1,705* £1,655* £1,470*
‘Our Service to the Person who has Died’* £1,045* £1,020* £1,015*
‘Your Appointed Funeral Director’* £ 720* £ 700* £ 725*
‘Our Hearses’* £ 720* £ 720* £ 620*
‘Our Limousines’ £ 252 (from) £ 252 (from) £ 175
‘Traditional’ coffin range £ 150* – £1,250 £ 150* – £1250 £ 150* – £1,250
Cardboard coffin £ 660 £ 660 £ 660
Willow coffin £1,015 £1,015 £1,105

If your eyes are glazing over at all the figures, we’ve added them up for you below. And we offer some prices from GFG Recommended Funeral Directors for comparison. (We hadn’t intended to do so, as this post is meant to be about the Dignity prices charged by different arms of the business for very similar services, but we thought comparisons with the prices of some independently owned businesses might be informative.)

We included the components with stars against them in the results table above, i.e. the charge for meeting and making the funeral arrangements, the charge for collecting and caring for the person who died, the peculiar additional charge for ‘Your Appointed Funeral Director’ (we’ve never come across a separate fee for having a funeral director appointed to you before?), and the charge for a hearse. We used the lowest priced coffin in the Dignity range, just to keep it simple, although we think that probably very few families pick the £150 option when presented with the coffin brochure, and we didn’t include embalming, even though the Dignity blurb states ‘…. as members of the National Association of Funeral Directors we recommend the peace of mind that embalming brings.’

We then checked the prices for the same or comparable service listed by independent funeral directors in the same parts of the country on our Recommended list.

Oh, and remember, these are figures for just the funeral director fees.

Cremation or burial costs, medical certificates if required (in England and Wales), and the fee for a minister or officiant will be in addition to the figures shown. Also, flowers, orders of service, limousines, placing of obituaries or other optional extras will all be extra costs. It would probably be wise to budget at least a further £1,000.

Here we go:

If you are in the London area, the Dignity price we were given is £4,340

For comparable services, Leverton & Sons would charge £2,310

From Compassionate Funerals, comparable services would cost £2,159

If you are in South East England, the Dignity price we were given is £4,095

Comparable funeral director services from Albany Funerals would cost £2,245

From Holly’s Funerals, comparable services would cost £2,131

If you are in the North of England,the Dignity price we were given is £3,980

Comparable funeral director services from Barringtons Independent Funeral Services would cost £2,150 (and include a limousine)

From Saint and Forster Funeral Directors, comparable services would cost £1,690)

Now, we know that there’s the fabled ‘face to face contact’ involved with all of the prices above. And a hearse. And visits to the chapel of rest if you want them. And a funeral director too. And staff to carry a coffin.

But what we are trying to illustrate is the VAST chasm between the prices charged for the‘admin side of things, collecting and dressing the deceased, transport and a coffin’ by the same company.

Just as a reminder, Dignity’s Simplicity Cremations ‘Attended Funeral’ costs £1,895 including cremation and doctors’ fees.

The lowest Dignity Funerals Full Service Funeral price we found cost £3,980 WITHOUT cremation and doctors’ fees.

That ‘face to face contact’, flexibility in arrangements, visits to the person who died and providing a hearse and staff at the funeral appears to add something in the region of three thousand pounds to the price.

(Now, in case anyone’s interested, the most recent Dignity Investor Presentation reports £120,100,000 revenue from their funeral services in the first 26 weeks of 2018, with Underlying Operating Profit of £42,100,000

Forty two million pounds. In six months.

The Investor Presentation is downloadable here.)

We’re sure that Dignity will be at pains to tell us that they offer a Simple Funeral for £1,995 plus third party costs.

We know this.

We also know that if you opt for a Dignity Simple Funeral: 

You will not be able to decide the date and time of the funeral, they will choose it.

You will not be able to choose a different coffin.

The person who died will not be dressed in their own clothes.

You will not be able to add a limousine if you want one.

There will not be a funeral procession.  

Payment of third party costs will be required at the time of making the arrangements, with the balance due 48 hours before the funeral.

See ‘Some important points about the Simple Funeral‘ here.

This restricted service is possibly not what most people would expect in return for paying a funeral director almost £2,000 for their service. Even with the face to face contact (and ‘motorised hearse’) you get with Dignity’s Simple Funeral.

You could ditch the face to face contact and the hearse, pick the day and time of your choice, have a similar coffin and save yourself around a thousand pounds (which you’d need to find for the third party costs on top of the Simple Funeral fee) by opting for a Simplicity Cremations Attended Funeral with that all-in price of £1,895.

Though this probably won’t be offered to you if you are a bereaved person who goes into a high street branch of Dignity. It’s only available online. From a company with a different name.

(Or, you could choose to use an independent funeral director instead. Ideally, one that we recommend. Look again at the prices for full, unrestricted funeral services from independent companies above.)

But to go back to the original point of this post, and to directly address the person who objects to our opinion and thinks we constantly look for the negative:

No, on balance, and with the greatest of respect, dear disgruntled reader, we don’t think it’s ‘fair enough’.

We don’t think it’s fair at all for a funeral provider to be subsidising costs for some bereaved people and charging much, much higher prices, for remarkably similar services, to other bereaved people.

Which is what appears to be happening here.

Incidentally, if you’ve read this far, you might want to have a browse through comments from some long-suffering Dignity PLC shareholders here and here, – many have seen the value of their shares crash since last year and are nervously watching the so-called ‘price war’ between Dignity and Co-operative Funeralcare, wondering how this will impact on the value of their holdings.

Some of the more optimistic appear to be hopeful that, under the lead of Paul Turner, Dignity’s new ‘Transformation Director’, the company’s performance will pick up, and the value of their holdings will start heading up from today’s level (around £10.50 a share) back towards the giddy heights of £24.60 a share just last November.

The Dignity transition programme is expected to be largely completed over a three year time frame according to that Investor Presentation. So possibly a scenario for ‘Hold’. (Or ‘Hope’.) Time will tell.

Meanwhile, according to some former and current Dignity employees, there’s a rather gloomier picture on the inside, read reviews here. 

Now, where’s that bonnet?

We haven’t approved you, Dignity Funerals

12 October 2018
Fran Hall
12 Comments
Categories: Dignity, funeral, funeral trends

We want to make it very clear to anyone who might be unaware – the Good Funeral Guide CIC had nothing to do with the recent announcement of Dignity PLC’s sidekick, Simplicity Cremations as ‘The Best Direct Cremation Provider 2018’ with a ‘Good Funeral Award’.

Having been co-organiser since they began, the Good Funeral Guide is no longer involved in any way with the Good Funeral Awards, we parted company with Brian Jenner amicably last year.

We wrote about it in a post on the blog earlier this year. And Brian wrote about it on his blog too

We have no knowledge or understanding of the deliberations involved in arriving at a decision to name a Dignity offshoot the best in the country.

Rest assured, had we still been involved in the Good Funeral Awards, we would have strongly resisted handing such a valuable accolade to the marketing people at Dignity to emblazon on their website and include in their press releases.

It simply wouldn’t have happened.

Our record shows our feelings about Dignity PLC. We have written almost 50 blog posts over the years, making our thoughts very clear.

Today we feel it is essential to write another.

Yesterday’s announcement that the online-only, Dignity owned, direct cremation service Simplicity Cremations is now offering clients an attended ceremony at a Dignity owned crematorium for an all inclusive price of £1,895 references the fact that Simplicity Cremations was recognised as Best Direct Cremation Provider at this year’s Good Funeral Awards.

We are concerned that this might be misconstrued as an endorsement of some kind by the Good Funeral Guide CIC by anyone who missed the announcements of our withdrawal from the organising of the awards.

It is not.

We do not endorse Dignity’s calculated attempt to step in as a solution to the issue of funeral poverty by offering their services at a rock bottom price.

We consider funeral poverty to have been very much contributed to by the bloated price increases charged year on year by Dignity PLC and other funeral providers following their business model.

We do not endorse the fact that, in areas where Dignity own a crematorium, local people looking for a low cost funeral will now find that the best price for a funeral service is offered by a company also owned by Dignity.

Meanwhile, families from the same areas preferring to use a local independent funeral director to assist them will be charged among the highest fees for cremation*, making the overall cost to these families for similar services disproportionally higher.

How is this fair to bereaved families?

*(Across the UK, the highest cremation fees are charged by Dignity crematoria. See the 2016 report from Beyond here, showing 9 out of the 10 highest priced UK crematoria are Dignity owned.)

How is this a level playing field for small independent funeral directors? For small business owners trying to compete in a market where the cremation fee charged to their clients appears to be vastly higher than that charged by Dignity to clients choosing an ‘Attended Funeral’ from their wholly-owned Simplicity Cremations service?

Here’s an example.

If you live in the Oxford area and want a funeral on a day and time of your choice at Oxford Crematorium (owned by Dignity), and you use a non-Dignity owned funeral director to help you, the cremation fee you will be charged is £1,070 (plus, potentially, doctors’ fees of £164).

If you instead choose the Dignity owned Simplicity Cremations, the full price you will be asked for for the entire funeral service, including cremation fee and doctors fees is £1,895. You can choose the date and time to suit you.

This means that Simplicity Cremations (aka Dignity PLC) is willing to provide all the remaining funeral directing services, including the collection of the person who died, their care, dressing them and taking them to the crematorium on a day and at a time of your choice for just £661.

How is this possible? While there are obviously savings to be made by dealing with bereaved families by phone rather than in person, the remaining services surely come at a greater cost than £661? The only way that we can think that this can make financial sense is that the cremation fee element is not £1,070 for clients engaging Simplicity Cremations rather than another funeral director.

Is this the case? If so, this is not acceptable.

We do not endorse Dignity crematoria offering differential prices to clients of Dignity funeral services, (whether trading under the online Simplicity Cremations name or the locally named high street Dignity branches).

We do not endorse bereaved families being unfairly penalised for choosing a funeral director that is not also owned by the owner of a crematorium in their locality.

We will be writing to the Competition and Markets Authority** to enquire how this situation sits with them.

We suggest anyone who shares our concerns does the same.

**The Competition and Markets Authority ‘promotes competition for the benefit of consumers, both within and outside the UK. Our aim is to make markets work well for consumers, businesses and the economy.’

Beyond’s response to the responses to the CMA

11 September 2018
Fran Hall
No comments
Categories: Dignity, Funeral markets study, National Association of Funeral Directors

The chaps over at Beyond have detailed their thoughts about some of the responses to the recent Competition and Markets Authority Funerals Market Study. Specifically, the responses from the National Association of Funeral Directors and Dignity PLC.

NB Beyond say in their introduction that they have a ‘few critiques’ concerning these submissions – it looks like once they started, they were on a roll, as the piece runs to over 5,000 words with a number of helpful tables to illustrate their points.

We thought readers of the blog might be interested in a) the responses to the CMA’s invitation for comments, all of which can be seen here, and b) Beyond’s critique of the responses from the NAFD and Dignity PLC, which can be seen in full here.

We have to confess, we haven’t read all the responses yet. The CMA has been uploading them in batches and we’ve only managed to plough through the first tranche, but we’ll be setting aside an afternoon to read the rest as soon as other commitments allow.

Hats off to Beyond for reading, analysing and voicing their observations about the content of the responses from two of the major contributors.

Happy reading!

Thoughts about Dignity PLC from a reader

27 August 2018
Fran Hall
13 Comments
Categories: Dignity

Over the weekend, one of our many readers posted a comment on a previous blog post about Dignity PLC’s report on what they tell us people ‘assume, want and expect from funeral directors.

We thought this comment deserved elevating to a post in its own right. So here it is. (Sorry about the illustration of a female in pink shorts as a reader though, we’re pretty sure it’s not an accurate depiction but it’s the best we could find).

‘Although this piece isn’t about “Quality and standards” and “Regulation” it is about the Dignity business.

I’ve long since ‘had it’ with the constant media spiel that Dignity dispenses, Nothing other than a total smokescreen aimed solely for the benefit of City Institutions/Brokers/Pension funds etc etc. who are only interested in profits, reducing overheads plus a healthy balance sheet, who on the whole know absolutely nothing about the Funeral and Cremation Industry. Those actively involved all of course employ ‘Analyst people’ with an interest in economics, figures whatever who regularly run a line over Dignity’s figures, i.e. expensively employed ‘bean-counters’.  Those Dignity figures will tell them one thing only, exactly how Dignity are performing. What this doesn’t do of course is to give any idea of what the remainder of the Industry are up to.  Said Analysts etc should spend an equal amount of time in looking at this excellent blog since without it, how can any comparisons be drawn……………….?

Consistently Dignity have taken a swipe at the Independent opposition by using the term “fragmented” without ever explaining the use of that term. Put simply, following results last year and earlier this year (together with the Share Price tanking) Dignity realised that they had to do something and as ever that involves a mandate in favour of an expensive Management Consultancy outfit, since that’s the sort of mandate that the Square Mile expects, Corporate Governance you know and again adding to the costs of a Funeral…………………….

Let’s have a look at their Crematoria as it’s not just the pure Funeral side of the business that I suggest is alos suffering, it will not be long (if not already) that they start to feel a real pinch in this area.  For many years no new Crematoriums were built but over the past 10 + years, thanks to Westerleigh and Memoria that position has significantly changed.  Take the fairly new Cromer Crem as an example, this has a forecast 1000 funerals pa. Previously the nearest Crem or should I say Crem’s were both in Norwich, both owned by Dignity.  We all know that the standard Dignity Crem fee is approx £999 so that’s an almost certain annual loss in turnover of £1M from those two locations alone. Memoria also have another operation (Waveney Memorial Park) south east of Norwich which must have added to the ‘Cromer loss’.  All in all Dignity must be taking a large hit in Norfolk, considerably in excess of the £1M already mentioned

Their Oxford operation I suggest is literally haemorrhaging. A few years ago Memoria opened a new site near Abingdon, all of those funerals would previously have taken place at Oxford.  This operation, the South Oxon Crem (shows as per their diary,) 21 funerals during the coming week, admittedly an exceptional amount and 11 next week.  Assuming 800 funerals pa, that’s another £800K that’s not rolling into Dignity’s coffers. Meanwhile down in East Devon, the now mature Southern Co-op funded East Devon Crem has taken a considerable amount of funerals away from what was a very busy Dignity operation in Exeter. That site alone has probably taken 500 funeral pa from Dignity.  Basingstoke is another. The recently opened Test Valley Crem near Romsey has almost certainly affected Basingstoke, say 450 pa (and possibly more)

I’ve highlighted five Dignity Crem’s, which have almost certainly in total shown a Revenue downturn pa of at least £3M, probably more. Memoria and Weterleigh Crem’s are all cheaper than Dignity, so it’s not just the Dignity Funeral side that’s having a marked effect on ‘Funeral Poverty’, it’s their Crem’s too.  I suggest that said Analysts may care to take this into account as well since the number of new Crem’s being built will almost certainly not decrease. Dignity have a monopoly/near monopoly with their Crem’s located in the Brighton, Chichester, Crawley and Leatherhead areas, all very busy but are at risk to new ‘operations’

I ‘sped read’ through the recent media hype that they’ve issued, gawd how much did that cost………..  There’s something about under-performing Branches and something else about separating the Branches from the Mortuary/Vehicle bases,  Funny that, since I thought that that had always been their business model.  And on under-performing Branches this is a ‘token offering’ to the Square Mile, those that current “u-p” are exactly the same as those that did, say five years ago, their under-performance has been mollified by consistently large price increases across the board.  I know who some of them are and would be really surprised if there are more than 30% of the entire Dignity Branches who are significantly profitable.  The plain truth is that what’s happened to Dignity during the past twelve or so months had been a long time coming,  a very long time and the Management have surely been fairly arrogant during this time, in that “…..it cannot happen to us….”.  Prices have consistently been ramped up to a level which cannot be justified and for whatever reason they just hadn’t accepted the power of the web and the constant on-line flow of information re prices etc from opponents, that’s pure arrogance in itself.  Going back to “Corporate Governance”, the current main Board have seven members, there’s only one who has long term experience of the Industry, I suggest that they’re no more connected to the Industry than your average daily commuter

Where is the business going…………….?  Can it go any further – closing a few Branches here and there makes no difference, surely they cannot increase the Crem fees again…….?   It’s a massive business with much middle management.  I could go on I really could……

There’s an additional dimension which never seems to be mentioned regarding the level of a Dignity funeral and the knock on effects that this has towards “funeral poverty”.  Put simply, with Dignity feeling that they can keep their prices at X and X for the different aspects of a Funeral and if the ‘market’ continues to accept them, then it’s pure logic that other Corporates (who are also based in or around Dignity Branches) feel that they can also charge those amounts. On this blog, Co-operative Funeralcare have made a number of appearances, the third largest Corporate i.e. Funeral Partners have to date made just the five appearances on here.  FP have grown significantly during the five or so years and seem to be in very much an ‘avaricious expansion mode’ with 160 shops (or thereabouts) to be precise.  Clearly no ‘mom and pop business’.  FP are no different than Dignity or F’care when it comes to on-line pricing, in fact they appear to be the most secretive.  Later this week I’ll be posting on here current prices for both Dignity and FP for Funerals in the same location. Two highlights (sic) will be the cost of a local removal and for supplying a hearse. I’ll also throw into the mix, comparable prices from a mature local Independent

Finally I had intended to write something along these lines six or so months ago but as the ‘Dignity Plc issue’ per se has again appeared on here, felt that this was a good a time as any to go into print.’

Andre