In September, the NAFD responded to a Call for Evidence from the Government in Westminster to inform the development of a new National Resilience Strategy, by understanding current perceptions of risk and resilience, gather evidence on where improvements could be made and gauge the UK’s appetite for change.
Also included in the Call for Evidence were specific questions on the Civil Contingencies Act, which provides a legislative framework for emergency management and response in the UK. A review of the Act is underway and is due to be completed by March 2022.
To inform the NAFD’s response, a short survey was sent out to members seeking feedback on experience during the pandemic and other major incidents, how member firms manage risk, involvement in local decision making and where they get information from to help them make decisions in an emergency situation.
The survey revealed that:
- less than half of respondents were confident that their Local Resilience Forum (LRF) had a funeral sector representative on it, and one in ten respondents confirmed that their LRF definitely did not. This is consistent with the NAFD’s experience;
- only 22% percent of respondents said that information was routinely cascaded to the local funeral sector from LRF meetings. Again, this paints a consistent picture with what we saw at a national level;
- while some respondents found their LRF a vital source of information, many were reliant on the NAFD or SAIF for information – or from personal contacts, informal chat groups set up locally, or other ‘back channels’;
- many funeral directors felt excluded (either intentionally or unintentionally) from local decision-making and felt they could have provided useful input on how to maintain an effective local deceased management service;
- a third of respondents did not feel they were informed early enough of information that had a material effect on them and the work they were doing;
- while some LRFs provided vital data-gathering on mortuary capacities and a good multi-agency approach to managing excess deaths and keeping things moving, others did not provide such proactive updates to the sector, leaving the funeral directors trying to source information themselves.
The NAFD has already highlighted many of these issues to Government and noted that the logical solution to ensuring funeral firms are included in local decision making is to classify the sector as Category 2 Responders in the Civil Contingencies Act, which would codify their place within local emergency response management.
The vast majority of respondents agreed, with more than 90% saying being classified as a Category 2 Responder was either important or extremely important to them.
You can read the NAFD response here.