A Nottinghamshire funeral director has welcomed a new ruling that has been brought in to force companies to publish clear price lists in order to stop families being overcharged.
Joanne Hutsby, a partner in Eastwood-based Gillotts Funeral Directors, says the new demand, which has been made by the Competition and Markets Authority, will bring huge benefits and comfort to bereaved families while “levelling the playing field” for funeral directors right across the industry.
The CMA made the ruling, which comes into force in September, following its investigation into the price of funerals in the UK, which concluded that some funeral directors were providing unacceptably low levels of care of the deceased.
Nottinghamshire funeral firm Gillotts Funeral Directors has welcomed a new ruling that has been brought in to force companies to publish clear price lists in order to stop families being overcharged.
In particular, it found that the country’s two biggest funeral firms, Co-op and Dignity, were often significantly more expensive than many of the small, typically family-owned businesses that operate the majority of branches in the UK.
The CMA discovered that in some cases families were being overcharged £400 more for a funeral they could have bought elsewhere, because of the way information was provided made it hard for them to compare prices from company to company.
In response, it ordered that from September 16, all funeral directors must display a standardised price list at their premises and on their website, with the list including the headline price of a funeral, the price of individual items comprising the funeral and the prices of additional products and service.
Gillotts, which operates five branches, in Eastwood, Kimberley, Stapleford, Selston and Heanor in Derbyshire, published its latest brochure this week and has posted it online, detailing the cost of everything it provides including its various packages.
These include its direct cremation option, a £1,255 option where the deceased’s coffin is transferred to a crematorium for an unattended cremation without an accompanying service to its bespoke funeral arrangements package, which starts at £2,330.
Other goods and services include a palette painted coffin at £420, a Welford casket for cremated remains at £85 and the hire of a quirky Morris Minor hearse, which costs £560.
Joanne Hutsby, a partner in Gillotts, said: “We have been open and transparent with our costs for years and we welcome this ruling because, quite frankly, many other operators, including some big-name firms, have not and in some cases this has enabled firms to charge different fees for the same services depending on where in the country they are.
“This step will therefore make it fairer for everyone, especially the families who quite rightly deserve the utmost transparency when it comes to designing a funeral for a loved one at a time when they are suffering the painful loss of a loved one.
“It also levels the playing field for all companies in the industry, especially local family run firms like ours who offer a quality, bespoke service but who many people may expect to be more expensive than one of the larger household names.”
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Joanne Hutsby, a partner in Gillotts, welcomed the new ruling, saying: “We have been open and transparent with our costs for years and, quite frankly, many other operators, including some big-name firms, have not.”
The CMA also banned funeral directors from making payments to hospitals, hospices and care homes in return for referrals and prevented funeral directors from seeking business through contacts in the police force and coroner courts.
Earlier this year a survey by the consumer magazine Which? found that a quarter of funeral directors did not display their prices online.
