Funeral directors highlight ‘misuse of benefit’ to bury loved ones

Increasing numbers of people are claiming financial assistance to help them bury a loved one, but failing to hand the cash to their funeral director, a body representing the profession has claimed.

The National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD) said that “unfortunately” it is “seeing an increase” in those claiming Funeral Support Payment (FSP) who are “not then passing that money on to the funeral director”.

One funeral director told MSPs that a teenage girl who claimed the money to help with her father’s funeral costs had failed to pay – and after they attempted to contact her they found details on social media of her “enjoying her unexpected foreign holiday in Mexico”.

Jim Brodie of Brodie’s Funeral Services highlighted this case in a submission to MSPs on Holyrood’s Social Security Committee as an “in-built loophole” in the system.

He added that this “makes the Scottish Government directly complicit, enabling fraud, by offering the applicant this option”.

While the FSP can pay out £1,279.15 if the deceased person had no pre-paid funeral plan, the system allows the next of kin to receive the payment directly, rather than have it go to the funeral director.

The NAFD said this meant that “in a worst-case scenario funeral directors are not paid at all, leaving them with bad debt and having carried out all agreed services for no remuneration”.

Mr Brodie said payments being made directly to applicants meant that “often vulnerable and financially constricted people are offered a very tempting choice, knowing the funeral firm are unlikely to pursue them”.

He claimed this system “enables significant fraud, whereby the funeral firm can accept the service, then the applicant redirects the funds to themselves, leaving the funeral firm unpaid”.

Caledonia Funeral Aid, a social enterprise which supports bereaved people throughout Scotland, said there could be “misuse of the benefit”.

It said: “We have examples where clients have chosen to keep the money, cut all contact with the funeral director, even changing phone numbers and email.

“There is no comeback for the funeral director in that there is no system to report the misuse or a way to retrieve the funds from a client.”

The NAFD said there are “flaws in the process”, as it pointed out that the payment “rarely covers the cost of funeral director professional service fees” which are typically £1,800 to £2,500.

The association added that “already, many funeral directors operate FSP funerals at a loss”.

Some funeral directors now refuse to conduct a service where FSP is being used “until payment is made in full up front”.

This, the NAFD added, could lead to “significant delays in the funeral, sometimes stretching into weeks”.

A survey of members by the NAFD and the Society of Allied Independent Funeral Directors (SAIF) found 81% said they had experienced non-payment or bad debt when the award was sent directly to the applicant.

More than half (54%) said they had delayed or refused a funeral being funded by the benefit because of concerns about payment

And 98% of funeral directors said the award should, as standard, be paid directly to the funeral director.

Nine out of 10 “strongly agreed” that the option for the payment to be sent directly to the applicant should be removed from the FSP.

The NAFD has recommended that the Scottish Government ensure any award of FSP “is paid directly to the funeral director who is carrying out the funeral, and not to the applicant”.

A Social Security Scotland spokesperson said: “We are committed to tackling funeral poverty and supporting people when they need it most.

“We have supported 33,450 individual clients since Funeral Support Payment was introduced in 2019. The average payment was £2,170 in the past year with 61% of these paid directly to funeral directors at the request of clients.”

They added: “We take all cases of fraud and error seriously and investigate thoroughly.

“In the past two years, there have only been two such claims relating to Funeral Support Payment. We would advise anyone suspicious of fraudulent use of any payment to report it immediately.”