The Funeral Expense Assistance (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024: scrutiny report

An award of FSP consists of three elements: reasonable burial or cremation costs, including the cost of any necessary documentation; a flat-rate payment of £1,178.75 or £143.85; and certain transport costs for the body, the applicant and mourners.¹Principal Regulation 13

Currently, support with burial and cremation costs is capped in line with the cost of a burial or cremation in the area where the deceased person was ordinarily resident. While the principal Regulations do not specify how the area of ordinary residence should be interpreted, in practice awards have been based on costs of a burial or cremation in the deceased person’s local authority area of residence. If the burial or cremation takes place in another area where costs are higher, the FSP award will not cover the full amount.

The current rules raise the question of how Social Security Scotland would calculate the maximum eligible costs for a cremation taking place outside the deceased person’s area of ordinary residence, if no crematorium exists within that area to provide a benchmark.

Draft regulation 2(6)(d) removes the current cap from the principal Regulations, allowing for reasonable burial or cremation (or, in the future, alkaline hydrolysis) costs to be paid in full, regardless of location within the UK.

SCoSS notes that this change allows for greater equity of options. Depending on a person’s location, there may not be a suitable local facility that can provide the type of funeral that the deceased person wished for, whether on religious or other grounds. For example, not every local authority area in Scotland has a crematorium. This is particularly likely to be the case with alkaline hydrolysis which, as a new type of funeral expected to be available in Scotland in the future, may only be offered in a very limited number of areas initially and is unlikely to be economically viable in any area that lacks sufficient population to sustain a crematorium at present.²These points from the Island Communities Impact Assessment (ICIA): The Funeral Expense Assistance (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024 and The Funeral Expense Assistance (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024 Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment.

Members of religious minorities and residents of more sparsely populated areas of Scotland are more likely to be disadvantaged by the current rules, as they are least likely to have access to an appropriate burial ground or crematorium in their local authority area. For example, most of the populated islands fall within local authority areas with no crematorium.³Island Communities Impact Assessment (ICIA): The Funeral Expense Assistance (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024, p. 9.

The amendment therefore represents an improvement to provision from both a practical and equality point of view, in keeping with principles (g)⁴Principle (g): Opportunities are to be sought to continuously improve the Scottish social security system in ways which (i) put the needs of those who require assistance first, and (ii) advance equality and non-discrimination. and (h).⁵Principle (h): The Scottish social security system is to be efficient and deliver value for money. However, as noted below, the practical challenge of calculating eligible costs for residents of remote areas could remain when funerals take place outside the UK.

Observation 1: SCoSS welcomes the removal of the current restriction on additional costs for burials and cremations taking place outside the deceased person’s area of ordinary residence.