Funeral Director Code of Practice: business and regulatory impact assessment

Footnotes

1. For example, see Scottish Government Response to Infant Cremation Commission, which accepts all recommendations without reservation.

2. More detail provided in Section 6.2 regarding the methodology for estimating the size of the sector

3. In particular the Competition and Markets Authority Funeral Market Investigation Order 2021

4. An Inspector of Crematoria had already been appointed in 2015, initially under the Cremation (Scotland) Regulations 1935 following a recommendation made in the Report of the Infant Cremation Commission 2014. On 4 April 2019, the Inspector was re-appointed under newly commenced sections of the 2016 Act (sections 65-85 and 89(1)(b)), as Inspector of Cremation, with a broader remit extending to the whole cremation process (replacing the Inspector of Crematoria position).

5. Supporting documents - Regulatory model including Progressive Licensing scheme for Funeral Directors: report to Scottish Ministers - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

6. Time to Talk About Quality and Standards (dignityfunerals.co.uk)

7. Goals-based and rules-based approaches to regulation (publishing.service.gov.uk

8. Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (2006). Principles-Based or Rules-Based Accounting Standards? A question of judgment. A review of the professional, academic, and regulatory literature.

9. In a rules-based approach, “enforcers of the rules make largely mechanical decisions and collect facts for the purposes of determining whether or not the regulated party has complied with the rules” (Goals-based and rules-based approaches to regulation (publishing.service.gov.uk, page 16)

10. Challenges businesses face when complying with regulation (publishing.service.gov.uk)

11. The Funeral Industry News Blog has approximately 600 subscribers (as of September 2023)

12. Paragraphs 2.53, 2.54, Funerals market study (Final report and decision on a market investigation reference), Competition & Markets Authority, March 2019.

13. Paragraphs 4.21, 7.9 (a), 8.29 (f), Funerals market study (Final report and decision on a market investigation reference), Competition & Markets Authority, March 2019.

14. This also applies, to some extent, to the numbers of both historic and in use burial grounds. Accurate figures for the number of crematoriums, however, are readily available due to their small numbers and a regulatory history by other government agencies e.g. by SEPA and by the Inspector of Cremation (and latterly, the Inspectors for Burial, Cremation and Funeral Directors), who have been in post since 2015, completing numerous inspections of each crematorium.

15. Personal communication, 18 May 2023

16. Inspector of Funeral Directors: Annual Report 2017-18 (page 8).