News from the Loved One

We may or we may not grow bored with people who tease and tantalise our appetites for new stuff we don’t actually need. Whether you’re the sort of person whose ears prick up when the ads come on, or whether, like me, you go fill your glass with yet more red wine, we accept that this is, for better or for worse, the way the world is, the way we are. It’s a game. And because it’s the baser instincts that feed the furnace of our getting-and-spending economy, there are thousands of cunning people out there (creatives, they call themselves) dedicated to devising devilishly alluring schemes to part us from our money.

I may sound grumpy and jaundiced. Perhaps you think it’s all terrific fun. I don’t want ever to fall into the error of supposing what I think to be right. But we probably all agree that, while we are prepared to tolerate or even embrace those who would address our living needs – a better motorcar, a cleaner toilet, a sunnier holiday – we draw the line when they fatten themselves on death. It is, therefore, with unmixed feelings that I recoil from Co-operative Funeralcare’s new media campaign to sell more funeral plans. Here’s how it works:

The £190,000 'Life is amazing. Pass it on' campaign was devised by Cheltenham agency TDA and aims to rekindle childhood memories of learning to tie shoelaces, being taught to ride a bicycle and 'cooking with mother'.

Confused? Told you it was cunning.

“The campaign follows in-depth focus groups, a survey of Co-operative members and ongoing analysis," says Adeline Bibby, marketing manager for The Co-operative Life Planning. "The resulting insight showed people are extremely interested in their heritage, and they want their lives to be remembered and have relevance in the future too."

She says heritage, she means legacy, poor thing.

They are beating a path to your heart. They are coming in sheep’s clothing. Want to get to the bottom of this? Go here. Then have a look at the dedicated webpage, where you can pass on your advice to the next generation. Very, very tempting. Here.

The Co-operative reports 21% increase in funeral plan sales

No funeral director, however brilliant, can stimulate an appetite for their product – because we pass their way but once. But a funeral director can sign up tomorrow’s customers today by the ingenious means of selling them a pre-need funeral plan.

Pre-need plans look like a very good bet. They’re inflation-proof. And they are easy to sell. Just tweak people’s consciences by telling them that it’s a helpful and thoughtful thing to do for those who will be charged with disposing of you and you’ve got a win-win-win.

The Co-operative Group and Dignity, in particular, have done an incredibly good job of selling their pre-need plans. So much so that the independent sector is finding that tomorrow’s market increasingly belongs to these big conglomerates. As turf wars go, this one is looking very one-sided.

The more so with the Co-op’s proclamation on 5 March of a staggering 21 per cent growth in sales of pre-need plans in 2009. If I were an independent I’d be writing off my future.

Are pre-need plans the best way of paying for a funeral? I haven’t the financial literacy to work that out. I wonder if any reader of this blog has a view or, better still, an analysis.

What is certain is that consumer choice is under grave threat from funeral providers who, for the most part, cannot rival independents for personal service or value for money.

Read the incredibly depressing Co-op announcement here.

Take it to them!

It's widely known in the funeral business that the prices charged by Co-operative Funeralcare and Dignity are on the whole higher than those charged by their independent competitors - the family businesses and new start-ups - so many of them passionate ex-Funeralcare employees who tell me they learned everything about what not to do at Funeralcare.

Funeral consumers don't know about this. They don't do price comparison shopping. And considering most of them buy just two funerals in their lifetime, and most of them don't have any recently comparable experience, they just assume hopefully that the prices charged by everyone are about the same. They assume that Funeralcare, with its ethical trumpeting and working class roots in will be on their side.

Caveat emptor! And here let's exonerate Dignity. Dignity's in it for the money. It's making lots. Well done, chaps! Don't necessarily like you for it, but realise that the rules of the game are capitalism, and that you play hard and, er, fair.

Why do so many independents moan about the higher prices charged by the big boys yet do nothing to get the message out? Because it would look undignified? I don't know that it would look less dignified than boasting about how cheap your low-cost funeral is as you do at the moment in your coded way.

In Nottingham, the eminently respectable and excellent AW Lymn make no secret of their competitive pricing structure. They break it down and spell it out graphically. Way to go, I'd reckon.

I'm grateful to blog follower Andrew Plume for this intelligence. Thank you, Andrew.

Go to the AW Lymn website. Click on the package prices pdf at the foot of the page, right-hand side.

Funeralcare screwupdate

Naughty scenes, it seems, recently shattered the reverent if gloomy atmosphere of George Pettit and Son, undertakers to the good people of Chester. At the staff Christmas party all manner of impropriety seems to have been committed. In an admirably tight-lipped and understated report, the Sunday People spells out in caps the words STRIPPING, THONG, BOOZED and KARAOKE. Gives you an idea. A sample sentence reads: “One video shot from the Christmas Eve party shows a worker with a nipple chain wearing only a thong with the slogan ‘Jingle My Bells’”.

Let not your indignation target the blameless Mr Pettit. It would never have happened in his day. The eminence grise behind the name above the door is none other than...

Co-operative Funeralcare.

Read the People report here.

Some conflict of interest, surely?

Michael Parkinson

HM Government Dignity Ambassador for old people, and...

...the face behind Sun Life funeral plans, which are...

...Co-operative funeral plans.

Tut tut.

Funeralcare screwupdate

THE SCENE: An undertaker’s premises in a shopping centre in the middle of a council estate on the outskirts of Hull. ENTER three ten year-old children...

Before we resume the narrative, consider for a moment what a ten year-old is. It is a half-size version of an adult. It speaks as a child. It understands as a child. It thinks as a child. It looks like a child. Dammit, it is a child.

The children ask if they can see the body of Daniel Trott, a 22 year-old who died when his motorbike collided with a lamppost. They are, they explain, friends of Daniel. The undertaker nods and ushers them into the chapel of rest.

Picture the scene.

What happened next? The little lads later bumped into Daniel’s brother and told them all about it. Daniel’s brother told his Mum. His Mum hit the roof. She had expressly told the undertaker that no one was to visit Daniel except those she authorised. The undertaker had helpfully given her business cards so that these people could identify themselves when they arrived. A good system, but not, it seems, foolproof.

A spokeswoman for The Co-operative Funeralcare, said: "Our member of staff acted in good faith, believing the boys, who explained they were friends of the deceased, had been given permission by the deceased's mother. This was an error, for which we have apologised to the family."

Hmnn. Read the account in the Hull Daily Mail here.

Local hero

In the matter of household shopping we look back nostalgically to the high street of yesteryear. Ah, those were the days. The butcher, the baker, the grocer. Ooh, hello, Postman Pat! In every shop a cheery greeting. And great personal service.

Gone. For ever. Whatever happened to them?

You bankrupted them. Yes, you.

You trooped off to the unloveable supermarket, didn’t you, where the food is fresher, the choice greater, the prices lower? Sure, the experience is impersonal, but does that bother you? No. You can look after yourself, thank you very much.

Small may be beautiful but bigger is better. Beastly it may be, but biggest is best.

Affordability is the critical factor here. Yes, a handbuilt car is the one you’d like. In your dreams. Back here on earth, c’mon let’s get grounded, the mass produced car is the one you can afford.

Funerals are no exception. You don’t want a production line funeral. You don’t want to be borne to your final resting place by Tesco. You don’t want to deal with a faceless organisation. You’d rather interact with humans who seem to care about you, have time for you, people who answer to you, not their line manager.

You want a bespoke, handbuilt, boutique funeral. Because small is beautiful.

And here we come to one of the great paradoxes of the funeral industry:

You can have one!

Any business which can reduce its unit price can make itself more affordable. Any undertaking enterprise that can open a few branches, share a car pool, operate a central mortuary, drive deals with coffin makers and other suppliers and work its employees to death, can, according to the immutable laws of business, do it cheaper. Obviously.

But they don’t.

In fact, a handbuilt funeral, a boutique undertaker, is likely to cost you considerably less than one of the big chains.

Whaa?! Why do they charge more?

Because they can. Because they’re greedy.

If you’re not going to compete on price, what’s left? Service, of course. But service, as we know, consumes time. It is the first victim of economies of scale. That doesn’t matter a bit if you’re buying your groceries. But when you buy a funeral, it's service that matters most.

And it’s because the big chains of funeral directors, most of them, can’t offer what most people want most—service—that they’ve got nothing to boast about. So, when they buy up a small, independent undertaker, they don’t put a huge poster in the window proclaiming UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT! Oh no. They go on sort of pretending to be the little guy they bought out. Are they ashamed to confess who they are? You answer that. Is this practice a bit shady? The judgement is entirely yours.

Can’t be too careful in my business. I used to hold the romantic notion that the law was all about justice until a property developer, enraged by my naïveté, told me it was all about intimidation. “You hire the most expensive barrister you can afford and you bloody well terrify the living s**t out of them!” he yelled patiently. He did it a lot. The yelling, too. He drove a handbuilt car.

Down in Sandhurst, Berkshire, Holmes and Sons, Funeral Directors, are keen to point out to their customers the difference between themselves and their competitors. This is the point of marketing: to define your USP and set yourself apart. Would that other funeral directors understood this First Law. On their unusually well written website David Holmes says this:

Locally it can be hard to know who is who in the funeral business. Some companies trade with names that can easily confuse. Camberley & District funeral directors are in fact the Co-op, as are George Parker in Yateley. In Fleet the Co-op name appears above the door. In some parts of Surrey & Hampshire, the Office of Fair Trading has forced the Co-op to sell some funeral businesses. They had become too dominant, there was a lack of real competition said the OFT. The Co-op´s legal people insist we tell you that being big doesn´t of course mean being bad.

In Fleet, Farnborough and Frimley the Goddards & Ford–Mears firms are in fact owned by a major independent UK car dealer. Mr Goddard sold out many years ago; we suspect local families would have no idea who actually owns the businesses nowadays, they just remember the name. In Aldershot ´Finches´ are now part of Dignity Plc, a major national chain trading with hundreds of names.

We believe bereaved families benefit from dealing with owners rather than managers answering to distant directors. With David Holmes & Sons YOU are the priority, not Head Office rules and figures. Our service is second to none – our charges are reasonable. We´re not under pressure to sell you anything. For your protection, we are members of both respected trade associations.

The gist of what Mr Holmes has to say here is easily grasped: he is beset by Co-ops and by branches belonging to other funeral chains, and they are not, he reckons, trading transparently. Many of these branches are owned by Southern Co-operatives, an independent Co-op society which, nonetheless, is about to re-brand its funeral operation under Funeralcare, yet retain its independence. Confused? I am. Why the heck would they want to do that?

The OFT did, indeed, compel The Co-operative Group Limited (CWG), the mother of Funeralcare, to sell off some of its branches following its purchase of the Fairways Group in 2006. The OFT's grounds were that this acquisition could result in substantial lessening of competition in specified areas. When CWG proposed to sell some of its branches to Southern Co-ops it was told that it must not on the grounds that Southern was not "independent of and unconnected to CGL".

All this information is in the public domain. Mr Holmes's facts are easily checked and verified.

But his is a new business in the area. He is an independent, and proud of it. What, therefore, is the response of the Co-op? Raise its game? Trade transparently? Meet Mr Holmes on his own ground?

None of the above. They want to meet him in the High Court. Yes, can you believe it, they’re threatening legal action against Mr Holmes unless he removes the reference to the Office of Fair Trading. Is this Southern Co-ops or Funeralcare doing the suing? Sue King, press officer at Southern Co-ops, has promised to tell me.

Nice one, Co-op. If you can’t beat em, trash em.

In your dreams.

Fair trade, slave trade?

Interesting piece in Sunday’s Observer.

The Co-op, which boasts about its ethical credentials, has been accused by farmers of making ‘unreasonable’ demands and flexing its market muscle in the wake of its £1.6bn takeover of Somerfield.

One large grower has sought advice from both the National Farmers Union and the Office of Fair Trading.

Terry Jones, the NFU’s head of government affairs, said: “We were surprised by the demands made by the Co-op, not least given their recent advertising campaign which played up their responsible approach to retailing.”

The Co-op’s food retailing sector has taken a hit in the wake of its takeover of Somerfield, and is currently posting losses.

Funeralcare, on the other hand, posted a profit in 2008 of £39.2 million, and announced in its annual review a megalomaniac ambition to become “the world’s leading funeral director.” Watch out, Poland!

Are profits from funerals being used to shore up a tottering retail sector? I wish I had the business brain to figure that one out.

Read the entire Observer story here.

Funeralcare screwupdate

Margaret Miller, of Dundas Road, North Berwick, passed away last Monday, aged 88, having paid her local Co-operative Funeralcare branch two-and-half years ago to be buried in the same grave plot as her parents, Andrew and Margaret Miller, in council-owned North Berwick Cemetery.

However, following her death, her relatives were told by Co-op staff that East Lothian Council had ruled there was no space in the lair for a third burial and Margaret was allocated a new plot in the recently opened extension of the cemetery.

But her family were determined that the pensioner's final resting place would not be in the new section of the cemetery, branded "inappropriate" by Margaret's nephew Kenneth Miller, and took the last-minute decision last Thursday not to go ahead with her burial - scheduled to take place the next day.

Find out what happened next here.

Ethical? Ha-ha!

The story so far...

Raggedexile

15 Jun 09, 7:05pm

Here's one about Funeralcare.

Funeralcare has derecognised the GMB union, in the process securing its expulsion from the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival and, I think, the Glastonbury Festival. It has been condemned by the TUC. This is a betrayal of the foundational principles and values of the Rochdale Pioneers and would seem to render the Co-op ethically redundant.

Funeralcare may be seen by many to be the People's Undertaker. How do you justify the high price of your funerals given the economies of scale you enjoy? You are in a position to undercut every other undertaker in the land.

In terms of competence, Funeralcare is scandal-ridden. In the funeral industry, Co-op is synonymous with Cock-op.

I have cancelled my smile account in protest at this. No one at smile felt inclined to debate this with me.

paulmonaghan

16 Jun 09, 11:14am

OK, quite a backlog to get through: here goes... btw, I'm Co-operative's Head of Social Goals

To Raggedexile... re funeralcare and GMB, we recognise a number of trades unions for the purposes of collective bargaining, however, we need to do this on a national basis as we are a national provider, and GMB were looking to represent a relatively small number of workers

Raggedexile

16 Jun 09, 12:26pm

Paul, with ref to Funeralcare, you recognise UCATT, which has a tiny number of members. I really can't follow your logic.

And you overlook the big point: How can the Co-op, of all organisations, derecognise a trade union and stay true to its founding principles and values?

And how do you answer this: the TUC has condemned Funeralcare for its victimisation and harassment of shop stewards.

And what of the cost of your funerals? You can answer this by telling us how profitable Funeralcare is.

What would the Rochdale Pioneers make of all this?

paulmonaghan

17 Jun 09, 11:46am

Whoah, no-one is ducking anything.

Think can see from responses to date we have addressed virtually everything raised.

Just didn't expect so many detailed questions (and am fitting in answering between meetings and such).

Raggedexile

17 Jun 09, 2:04pm

Paul, you run the risk of being discourteous at the very least. You have given an undertaking to address questions posed by readers and now you dash in and out breathlessly pleading meetings and such. Is that how important this exercise is to you?

Are you fobbing me (and everybody else) off when you say 'Think can see from responses to date we have addressed virtually everything raised'? I think it is for us to declare our satisfaction with your responses, not you.

You have not answered my central question: does Funeralcare's derecognition of the GMB union not amount to a betrayal of the Co-op's founding principles and disqualify it as an ethical enterprise?

Please would give this greater than cursory attention?

Raggedexile

17 Jun 09, 5:11pm

Hello? Hel-lo? Anyone there?

Ethical? Ha!

Over at the Guardian's ethical living blog they've put the Co-op under the spotlight.You ask, they answer from now til Friday.

Well, of course, oh yes, I have been asking (under my moniker of raggedexile, adopted when I was living in joyous penury on the guano-spattered Isle of Portland).

Have at them! Good sport! Make em wriggle!

The good, the bad and the ugly

I was pretty rude last week about AB Walker and Son. Having been so, I fired off an email to Julian Walker offering a platform for a riposte.

Within a few days I had a reply. It was a cheery reply, a generous reply: the reply of a man who is confident but not at all arrogant, not a bit of it. “Congratulations,” he said, “on your move to push for more debate, openness, variety and choice of funeral options.” It’s what he wants for his clients, too. He is going to make some changes to his company’s website. He invited me to come and see for myself how his business does things and make a properly informed appraisal. I had already rather supposed that AB Walker and Son is a very good business, and several people have written to tell me that that is exactly what it is. But I shall certainly pay a visit. It is always good to spend time with people to whom funerals really matter.

How very different from the home life of our own, dear Co-operative Funeralcare. Judging by their reluctance to respond to stinging criticism and regular exposure of their worst inadequacies, they seem to regard themselves as immune from consumer examination, a juggernaut armour-plated by the bullshit they pay PR and advertising people to plaster them with. It's unaccountable. I think they’re too smart to be rated stupid. If they had a really good story to tell about themselves they would fall over themselves to tell it. But they don’t. It’s money that does their talking. Funeralcare is expanding so fast it must reckon itself unstoppable. It’s a bit like the tanks rumbling into Tiananmen Square.

Do big chains of funeral directors provide the service and value you can get from a really good independent? Mostly, no. Why not? Too big = impersonal. Too greedy. There’re quite a lot of predating venture capitalists out there, you know, gorging on death. For them, funerals are a fast-track to mountains of moolah and they’re devouring independents as fast as they can. What’s a funeral director’s ideal size? Well, there’s no such thing as too small. What’s too big? There’s a topic for another day. Are there some truly awful tiny independents out there? Yes, there truly are. You can’t be too careful.

The sheer nastiness and cruelty of some of the big chains was brought home to me by the experience of a young man whom I shall not name, but whose story I have verified. When the funeral director for whom he worked was bought out,

“the whole company ethos changed, and I found that it was really at odds with my way of caring for and helping the clients. Something had to give. Having obstructed and objected to almost all of the new ways of working, I decided I could no longer continue, and began to look for another post with an independent firm. No such post being available in the area, and with my parents’ support, I began to look for premises in which I could open my own funeral home offering the standard of care and service I felt should always be given.”

It wasn’t straightforward. He had signed a non-compete clause with the big chain and undertaken not to open a rival business within 5 miles. He found premises more than five miles away – but more than five miles by road, not as the crow flies. For an undeviating crow the journey was a smidgen under.

“They made my life very difficult and did all in their power to prevent me from opening. I was threatened with high court action, I was followed by their staff, I was photographed going about my business and generally harassed as much as was practical. However, by this stage my mind was made up. After several threats of high court action and the like I felt I had no other negotiating power left so contacted our local newspaper, a reporter was sent to interview me, photographs were taken and a scathing article was written about them. The result – no further communications! Much relieved I began trading. On 1st April I will begin my fifth year’s trading. During the first four years I have been well supported by local families and to date the number of funerals has increased year on year.”

Why the mafia tactics? Inferiority complex, for sure. If you can’t join them, beat them. Up. The guilty company in the case above was the Fairways Partnership, ceo David Hendry. Fairways was bought up in 2006 by Funeralcare, present ceo none other than, you guessed it, the very selfsame David Hendry.

The funeral industry has been subjected to far too little piercing and informed consumer scrutiny. Together, we must change that.

Co-operative Funeralcare and the GMB: a response

Here is a response from Phil Edwards, Head of Public Relations at The Co-operative, to the stance which The Good Funeral Guide has taken on Co-operative Funeralcare's derecognition of the GMB union, which I reproduce unmediated. You should read it together with the statement by the GMB.

Dear Mr Cowling,

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to comments made by yourself and Phil Davies from the GMB union in The Good Funeral Guide.

It is now two years since we took the decision to derecognise the GMB. The decision was taken because we need to work with unions which operate across the Group’s range of businesses and have an in-depth understanding of the overall commercial backdrop against which it operates. The GMB had the smallest membership of Funeralcare’s three main non-specialist unions and unlike both Unite and USDAW, had no significant representation in other Co-operative Group businesses. Whilst it is the case that UCATT has fewer members in Funeralcare and does not have members elsewhere in the Group, a sizeable proportion of its membership is made up of stonemasons who are not represented by any other union.

Whilst some 150 funeral workers in Co-operative Funeralcare are in membership of the GMB, more than seven times that number are members of Usdaw within Funeralcare. Usdaw has around 20,000 members across the Co-operative Group.

We fully respect the rights of all of employees to belong to any trade union of their choosing and continue to provide 'check-off' facilities in respect of union subscriptions for GMB members. Mr Davies’ claims regarding victimisation of staff are entirely without foundation

The decision was taken with the full backing of the Group’s board and remains final. It is also worth noting that the engagement score of The Co-operative Funeralcare’s staff – a key measure of their commitment to the business – has steadily increased over the last four years and now matches the high level set in other trading sectors of The Co-operative Group. Union membership within Funeralcare is also at an all time high.

Yours sincerely


Phil Edwards

A statement to the Good Funeral Guide from the GMB

The co-operative movement has a history to be proud of. Founded by working people for working people, its principles were formulated by the Rochdale Pioneers in 1844.

Given its origins, it makes you blink and/or howl with disbelief to learn that Co-operative Funeralcare, the People’s Undertaker, has derecognised a trade union, the GMB. This seems to fly in the face of its foundational principles and to disqualify it as a high-minded ethical organisation.

The consequences of this betrayal for the People’s Undertaker and the wider Co-operative movement have been, from time to time, humiliating. The Co-op was banned by the Glastonbury Festival in 2007 and from the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival in 2008. It has been condemned by the TUC for its victimisation and harassment of shop stewards, and excluded from all involvement with, or sponsorship of, TUC activities.

Find out about the GMB campaign here.

To date, I have succeeded in eliciting no statement from Funeralcare in its own defence, despite offering it an empty platform to speak from. It has a case to answer and a duty to do that.

I am, though, pleased to publish below a statement issued to the Good Funeral Guide and, therefore, to all funeral consumers, from Phil Davies, National Secretary of the GMB union.

From a worker’s point of view the Co-op, founded by the Rochdale pioneers to give working people a decent place to shop, is probably the worst company in the UK. Nearly every large town and city in the UK has a Co-operative. The Society used to boast that it could look after working people from the cradle to the grave. Travel shops, banks, biscuit factories, furniture factories and every sort of production of UK goods was once part of the Co-operative’s portfolio. Its own adverts on the TV each night congratulate itself on caring about the environment, caring about African farmers’ rights and helping the less well off people in the world.

You would think that a simple right to belong to a UK trade union of your choice and have that trade union recognised would be enshrined in the principles and policy of the Co-op Funeralcare. Well, the so-called caring Funeralcare Division of the Co-op derecognised the GMB in Mach 2007. By doing this the company has broken International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions and taken away the rights of workers to belong to a recognised trade union.

The reason the Co-op give is that they want to deal with fewer unions, so why do they still recognise UCATT, a union that only has around 30 members in Funeralcare and no other influence in the funeral industry? At the time of derecognition the GMB had around 500 members working in most parts of the UK, but mainly in London and the South East.

The real reason was that the GMB wanted to see proper pay and conditions for its members. The GMB was not prepared to see its members being bullied and intimidated. Managers within Funeralcare are well paid, while those decent and hardworking employees who arrange the funerals and conduct the funerals are given the lowest of wages in an industry where Funeralcare makes massive profits. These profits are never shared equally with those workers at the sharp end, and when mistakes are made because the workers are overworked and underpaid, manning levels have dropped and more work has been put on the arrangers who not only have to deal with the bereaved but now have to chase up any bad debts within their own community. This development must have repercussions within their own area of work.

Finally, the consumer, in this case the family, and those responsible for arranging funerals, are vulnerable to exploitation, and organisations that are independent are needed to monitor the activities of large funeral companies such as Funeralcare. The GMB will continue to support its members and will continue to fight against injustice within the industry.

Funeralcare screwupdate

At Teesside crematorium a family is waiting for the coffin containing the body of Olwyn Laidlaw to be carried from the hearse. They are fighting back tears. Then someone comes up to them and says, ‘I don’t know how to tell you this but that’s not your mum. I don’t know how it’s happened.’

 

Devastating.

 

The undertaker has brought the wrong coffin.

 

It takes 40 minutes for Olwyn to be fetched. Luckily, the crem can find a slot for her, but in a different chapel, not the one the family wanted.

 

Says Olwyn’s daughter, “The whole family has had double the trauma. She was a very loved woman, my mum. A very hardworking woman from Grove Hill. She deserved more.”

 

No prizes for guessing the name of the undertaker.

 

Read the sad and sorry story here. 

Funeralcare screwupdate

I’ve blogged about Co-op Funeralcare screwups in the past. I have been critical and it has unsettled people. We all screw up sometimes; to err is human. Be a little kinder, people have said (cos remember, you screw up sometimes, too, yes?)

Of course. And I hope I come out with my hands up. But that’s not the point.

Funeralcare, by having derecognised the GMB trade union, is arguably in breach of its foundational principles. Can it therefore claim to be an ethical organisation, of and for the people? I think not. Have I given Funeralcare an opportunity to refute these allegations and wash its clean linen in public? Yes. Frequently.

Silence.

People write and ring and tell me of their awful experiences of Co-op funeral homes. Where there’s a potential law suit to bring I refer them to Teresa Evans. She’s handling a case at the moment. 

And, of course, I keep an eye out for the sort of bungling incompetence which looks as it proceeds from systemic poor practice. Here are two examples, both from the Wirral.

In 2006 a widower, Alfred Hutton, went to visit his wife in a Funeralcare funeral home. He found the wrong body in the coffin, dressed in his wife’s clothes. The staff tried to convince him he was mistaken. He knew well enough: the body in the coffin had a full head of hair; his wife had lost hers to chemotherapy. The funeral home only conceded that Mr Hutton was right when the rest of his family came in and agreed with him. Funeralcare then tried to blame the hospital for mixed-up wristbands but the truth came out. Funeralcare waived the bill and claim the matter was settled “amicably”. What an extraordinary adverb. Here’s how Mr Hutton sees it: “Mistakes of this scale are totally unacceptable and cause unbearable stress and anger to families for years after.”

The second example happened on 12 December 2008. Funeralcare staff buried the wrong body. The vicar was sure it was the wrong body, the name on the coffin lid was wrong, but the funeral director said the man had two names. Later that day Funeralcare realised the vicar was right. They summoned extra staff, rushed the right body in its coffin to the burial ground and, having illegally exhumed the wrong one, plonked it in the grave without a funeral ceremony of any kind. The rescued (or wrong) body was given a second funeral a few days later and cremated. The scandal came to light when a Funeralcare staff member’s conscience got the better of him and he confessed to the vicar, who later performed a funeral ceremony for the buried body. Again, Funeralcare settled the matter “amicably” (where on earth do they get that word from?).

If Funeralcare, and the Co-ops generally (there may be exceptions) were proud of what they do and the way they do it they’d proclaim their ownership of every undertaking business they buy out (often with stupid money). They don’t. They hide their name behind that of the original owner. It deceives people.

What does that tell you?

Read the full stories in the Wirral Globe here and here. 

Search this blog archive for other F-care screwups.